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Unit Head, Epidemiology and Analytics for Response, WHO Health Emergencies Programme, Geneva, Switzerland

Olivier le Polain is a public health physician and epidemiologist. He heads the Epidemiology and Analytics for Response (EAR) unit within WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, supporting responses to epidemics and acute humanitarian crises. Prior to joining WHO Olivier worked as Deputy Director of Operations on the UK-Public Health Rapid Support Team between 2017 and 2020. He has held various other roles as public health specialist and epidemiologist primarily in the UK, but also in Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. His main areas of interest are in surveillance and health information for decision making, infectious disease epidemiology, and the optimization of disease control interventions, particularly in crises and epidemics.

Olivier trained in medicine in Belgium and completed his Public Health training in London. He is an alumnus of the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology, holds a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health in the UK.

Publications