The GAVI Alliance Board appointed Dr Jaime Sepulveda, Director of the Integrated Health Solutions Development programme at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as its new Vice-Chair. GAVI said that Dr. Sepulveda will replace Dennis Aitken of the World Health Organization who has retired, and that Daisy Mafubelu, Assistant Director-General for Family and Community Health, will become WHO’s representative on the board. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be represented by its alternate member. The announcement said that Dr Sepulveda served for more than 20 years in a variety of senior health posts in the Mexican government. From 2003 to 2006, he was director of the National Institutes of Health of Mexico. He also served as Director-General of Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health and dean of the National School of Public Health. In addition to his research credentials, Sepulveda is an experienced implementer of effective health programmes. As Mexico’s Director-General of epidemiology and later Vice-Minister of Health, Sepulveda designed Mexico’s Universal Vaccination Programme, which eliminated polio, measles, and diphtheria by more than doubling childhood immunisation coverage in two years. He also designed a national health surveillance system and founded Mexico’s National AIDS Council. Dr Sepulveda holds a medical degree from National Autonomous University of Mexico and three advanced degrees from the Harvard School of Public Health. He was a recent member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.gavialliance.org/media_centre/statements/2009_11_17_new_vice_chair.php