Approved by Member States at the sixty-sixth session of the WHO Regional Committee in 2015, the regional action plan for viral hepatitis in the Western Pacific 2016–2020, provides a systematic approach to priority areas for action by countries to reduce the impact of viral hepatitis, with a focus on chronic hepatitis B beyond immunization and hepatitis C. It was developed through extensive Member State and expert consultations.
Finn Jarle Rode is Executive Director at the Hepatitis Fund. Previously he was Executive Director at the Oslo Center, where he ran a turnaround operation, both in terms of finances as well as strategically. Finn Jarle has previously served as Director in the Global Partnership team of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) headquarters in Geneva. He has more than 20+years of experience in IFRC/ICRC and Norwegian Red Cross. He has been IFRC’s Country Director in Afghanistan, North Korea, Regional Director for Eastern Africa, and Indian Ocean Islands. Finn Jarle also held different positions in the private sector in Norway, including within shipping and the hotel industry. He holds an MBA from Heriot-Watts with in depth focus on organisational development and international finance.
Dr Gottfried Hirnschall was the Director of the HIV/AIDS Department and the Global Hepatitis Programme (GHP) of the World Health Organization until 2019. In that role he led the organization’s work in strategy, advocacy, cutting-edge normative policies, and of country support to scale-up national responses to HIV and viral hepatitis. From 2005-2008 he directed the PAHO Caribbean HIV office. Throughout his career, the inclusion of vulnerable and stigmatized groups in national programme responses has been of central concern. Dr Hirnschall holds an MD from the University of Vienna, Austria, and an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Mr. Alton spent more than 20 years at Gilead Sciences, where he served in an array of leadership roles across a portfolio of responsibilities. From January 2019 until March 2019, Mr. Alton was Gilead’s interim chief executive officer. Prior to that, he was the company’s chief patient officer, responsible for Gilead’s government affairs, public affairs, patient outreach, and engagement initiatives, as well as efforts to facilitate access to its medicines around the world. During his tenure at Gilead, his wide-ranging roles included leadership of commercial operations in Europe,Asia, Latin America, and Africa, as well as government affairs, public affairs, and global medical affairs. He also served as general counsel and chief compliance officer. Prior to joining Gilead, Mr. Alton was an attorney at the law firm of Cooley Godward, LLP, where he specialized in corporate finance transactions for healthcare and information technology companies. Mr. Alton is a member of the board of directors of Corcept Therapeutics, Enochian Biosciences, and several non-profit organizations, including Black Women’s Health Imperative, AIDSVu, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Oakland. Mr. Alton received a bachelor’s degree in legal studies from the University of California at Berkeley and a law degree from Stanford University.
Kenneth Kabagambe is the Founding Executive Director of the National Organization for People Living with Hepatitis B (NOPLHB) the only patient driven Non-Governmental Organization advocating for the rights of Hepatitis B patients in Uganda. He is also a member of the Hepatitis Technical Working Committee of the Ministry of Health.
Kenneth is also the Past Executive Board Member for the African Region at the World Hepatitis Alliance. Kenneth has attended high level consultancy workshops by WHO on Viral Hepatitis. Kenneth was one of the judges during the WHO Hepatitis testing contest that emerged into the Hepatitis B and C testing guidelines.
Kenneth is also a member of the African Union Hepatitis Technical Working Group
He is the brain behind the African Hepatitis Summit 2019 held in Kampala that brought over 600 regional and global leaders working on viral hepatitis for a high-level meeting that led to the Egyptian support towards the treatment of hepatitis C patients in Africa.
Kenneth has extensive patient experience in the field of Viral Hepatitis as he has spent most of his entire life working on advocating for patients’ rights in accessing quality diagnosis, care and treatment.
He holds a Bachelors’ degree in social sciences with a bias in Sociology and Public Administration of Makerere University Kampala.
His aim is to strengthen the patient voice in Africa and across the global in recognizing the growing burden of Viral Hepatitis which now claims more people than HIV/AIDS but still not given the profile it deserves the reason he has initiated the Africa Hepatitis Initiative (AHI) a Pan African organization with a vision is to mitigate the impact of viral hepatitis in Africa through collaborations with key stakeholders in viral hepatitis.
