Po-Lin Chan

World Health Organization South-East Asia Region

世界卫生组织东南亚区

Dr Po-Lin Chan is the Regional Advisor Hepatitis/HIV/STIs in the WHO South East Asia Regional Office, based in Delhi, India. In this position, she drives and leads the strategic, policy and technical support to the 11 countries in the Region, covering India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Timor Leste and the Democratic Republic of Korea.

Dr Chan is a medical doctor, public health and epidemiologist, with over 27 years of experience.  She worked in conflict settings in Africa before starting with the World Health Organisation, serving in countries (India and China) and regions (South-East Asia Regional Office in New Delhi and Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila). Dr Chan architected the start and scale-up of the India national HIV treatment and prevention of vertical transmission response as well as launching the world’s first paediatric HIV tprogramme using fixed dose combination treatment in 2006. In China, she catalyzed the global paradigm shift from dual to Triple Elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis to include hepatitis B.

As regional lead in the Western Pacific Regional Office, she coordinated scale-up of the comprehensive response for hepatitis prevention, treatment, care and surveillance including drug price reduction. Prior to joining the regional office at SEARO, she was the Team Lead for Communicable Diseases in WHO India overviewing the country office support on AMR, infection prevention and control, TB, Malaria, HIV, hepatitis, STI, Neglected Tropical Diseases and other communicable diseases. She has published extensively on the public health response for HIV and viral hepatitis, implementation science and in translating policy and research into operations. Dr Chan’s interests include the systems approach for public policy, disease surveillance and strategic information for decision-making, and nurturing collaboration across sectors to improve Health for All.