This is Associate Professor Huong Thi Giang TRAN
Dr Huong Thi Giang Tran is the first Vietnamese woman appointed as Director, Division of Programmes for Disease Control (DDC) at the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific. Dr Tran has been the Director General of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Health of Viet Nam for 11 years. With more than 28 years working experiences for the health sector of Viet Nam, she has led and managed international health activities across the health sector, mobilizing and managing technical cooperation from development partners and working on different public health programmes, especially communicable disease control programmes and other public health programmes. She was the Chair of ASEAN SOMHD (Senior Officials Meeting on Health Development), Chair of APEC Health Working Group, and alternate member of the Executive Board of the World Health Assembly.
She obtained the qualification of a Medical Doctor, specialized in pediatrics from Hanoi Medical University in Viet Nam in 1991, a Master of Public Health from the University of New South Wales, Australia in 2000 and a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health from the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Viet Nam in 2008. She received the title of Associate Professorship in 2016 and was appointed as a Deputy Head of the Global Health Department of Hanoi Medical University from 2015 – 2019.
From July 2019 up to now, as the Director of Division of Programmes for Disease Control, she oversees all the disease control programmes at the WHO Regional Office, including vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization, Communicable Diseases, including TB, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STIs, Malaria and Vector-borne diseases, Neglected Tropical Diseases, NCDs Management and Mental Health.
Under her leadership, the DDC has developed several Regional Strategic Frameworks on Immunization, communicable diseases, NCDs and Mental Health. In particular, she has been leading implementation of the Regional Framework for the future of Mental Health with focus on suicide prevention and integration of mental health services into community-based approach.