APMEN invited nominations from senior Government officials from APMEN country partners to serve as Chairs for each of our Working Groups – Surveillance and Response, Vector Control and Vivax.  

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Dr Rattanaxay Phetsouvanh, Dr Rose Nani Mudin and Dr Karma Lhazeen as the incoming Chairs of the Surveillance and Response, Vector Control and Vivax Working Groups, respectively.

Surveillance and Response Working Group: Dr Rattanaxay Phetsouvanh is the Director General of Communicable Diseases Control, Ministry of Health, Lao PDR. He is a technical taskforce member and represents the CCM, Lao PDR in the Regional Artemisinin Initiative’s Regional Steering Committee (RSC). He is also the Head of the Secretariat for Malaria Elimination in Lao PDR. He graduated from Leipzig University in Germany and is a Master of Science of Tropical Medicine from Mahidol University, Thailand.  Dr Rattanaxay is supported in his role by his Co-Chair, Professor Richard Maude. Prof. Maude is Head of the Epidemiology Department at Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Bangkok, Thailand and Associate Professor in Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford, UK, Honorary Consultant Physician at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and a Visiting Scientist at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, USA. He has worked at Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit since 2007 where he leads a portfolio of epidemiological research on malaria, dengue and COVID-19.

Vector Control Working Group: Dr Rose Nani Mudin is Deputy Director - Communicable Disease, Disease Control Division, Ministry of Health, Government of Malaysia. She graduated as Doctor from the State University of Ghent, Belgium and has a Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology from University of Malaya, Malaysia. She has over 20 years’ experience as program manager and managing infectious diseases and Vector Borne Diseases at the state, national, and international levels. Dr Rose is supported by the Co-Chair, Dr. Leo Braack from Malaria Consortium. Dr Braack is a Senior Vector Control Specialist and has extensive experience in malaria control in Africa, and has also spent considerable time as an Associate Professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa doing research on malaria vector feeding and biting behaviour. He now spends his time equally on dengue and malaria vector control in the Greater Mekong Subregion. 

Vivax Working Group: Dr Karma Lhazeen is Director - Department of Public Health, Ministry of Health, Bhutan. She previously worked as the Program Manager for the Vector Borne Disease Control. She is a medical doctor who graduated with Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from Nalanda Medical College, Patna, India and Masters in Clinical Tropical Medicine from the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok. She accomplished Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Tropical Disease Research and managed the Small Grant Programme at the South East Asia Regional Office of WHO, Delhi, India. Dr Karma is supported by her Co-Chair, Dr Caroline Lynch from Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV).  Dr Lynch is the Regional Advisor for MMV, covering the Greater Mekong Subregion, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. She is a parasitologist and epidemiologist with nearly 20 years’ experience leading, designing, delivering, evaluating and influencing malaria control, maternal health and family planning programmes across 30 countries. Carrie holds a PhD in Malaria Epidemiology with a focus on migration and malaria in Uganda from LSHTM and an MSc in Applied Parasitology and Medical Entomology from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.