Pr. Nicolas Meda
Special Advisor to the President of Burkina Faso in Charge of Human Capital Development
Former Minister of Health
Based in Burkina Faso, Dr Meda is a medical epidemiologist, senior research scientist, trialist, evaluator, Professor of Public Health, international expert on health and development, particularly, in HIV/AIDS, epidemic-prone diseases, nutrition, and women & children’s health. He established an international reputation in the field of the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV & other viruses through collaboration with various northern academic & research networks and institutions. His research results were instrumental in launching the first PMTCT programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa. He held several high-level positions in his career, including coordinator of French National Agency for AIDS Research (ANRS) activities in Burkina Faso, Director- General of Centre MURAZ, a national health research centre and Health Minister. He is currently Special Advisor to Burkina Faso President leading Human Capital Development Portfolio. He has accumulated more than 25 years’ experience of working in health research, higher education, international consultancy, and senior management interacting with high-profile actors in global health landscape at WHO, UNAIDS, Global Fund, Gates & Buffett Foundations, international NGOs, to name few. He has conducted extensive multicentre international clinical trials funded by ANRS, DFID, EU, EDCTP and run several epidemiological studies among vulnerable populations for HIV including urban and rural women, young people, prisoners, and commercial sex workers. He is a former member of UNAIDS/WHO Monitoring & Evaluation Reference Group and delivered more than 35 scientific reports from consultancies carried out in different African countries on HIV/AIDS & STI surveillance, Global Fund health interventions impact assessments, and on effectiveness of institutional health research partnerships. He is the author of nearly 300 articles published in international journals, a reviewer and member of editorial boards for a number of different scientific journals, and member of several national and international public health programmes steering committees, scientific review committees and networks.