Dr Sarabjit Chadha elected as Chair of the Core Group of Global Drug-resistant TB Initiative (GDI)

 

Dr Sarabjit S Chadha is a clinician by training with over 15 years’ experience of treating TB (including drug resistance TB) and public health. He is currently working with Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) as the Regional Technical Director.

He has earlier worked with International Union Against TB and Lung Disease (The Union) as Deputy Regional Director heading the TB and Communicable Diseases Unit for South East Asia.

He is the co-chair of the ‘TB and Prison sub-group’ of The Union. He was the Chair of the ‘WHO Regional Drug-Resistant TB Advisory Group’ for the South East Asian Region. He has been providing technical assistance to Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Myanmar and Timor Leste on programmatic management of drug resistant TB. He facilitates international courses on ‘Clinical Management of Drug Resistant TB’; ‘TB prevention and care’ and ‘TB Operational Research’. He has nearly 50 publications in international peer reviewed journals.

 

Dr Fraser Wares to serve as vice-chair of the Core Group of Global Drug-resistant TB Initiative (GDI)

Dr Fraser Wares is a British trained public health physician. After working for various international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in different countries (1988 to 2001), he joined the World Health Organization (WHO) first as the Medical Officer (TB) in India (2002-2010) and then as a Medical Officer in the Stop TB Department, WHO Geneva (2010- 2016). Much of his work in India and in Geneva was providing technical assistance on drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) to the member states. During this time, he also participated in the development of a number of WHO’s DR-TB related policy and implementation documents, in addition to being part of the Secretariat for the global Green Light Committee and then subsequently for the Global Drug resistant TB Initiative (GDI). He was selected to be a member of the GDI’s Core Group and Vice-Chair of the GDI in late 2018.

Since early 2016, he has been a Senior PMDT Consultant with the KNCV TB Foundation based in The Hague, The Netherlands, providing technical support mainly to Afghanistan, Ethiopia and India. One of his other main roles has been as co-ordinator of the “Core bedaquiline co-ordination project”, under the umbrella of the USAID-supported Challenge TB Project. He also serves as member on the South-East Asia Regional Advisory Committee on DR-TB (“SEA rGLC”) for 2019 to 2020.

Core Group members of the Global Drug-resistant TB Initiative