Mario C. Raviglione, M.D.

Mario C. Raviglione, M.D.

Mario C. Raviglione is Full Professor of Global Health at the University of Milan, Italy, where he is responsible for global health, and Honorary Professor at Queen Mary University of London. He has also been Professeur Titulaire at the Global Studies Institute of Université de Genève in 2019-20. In 2003-2017, he was Director of the Global TB Programme (GTB) at the World Health Organization (WHO).

He joined WHO in 1991 to work on TB/HIV research and TB epidemiology in Europe. He was part of the team that developed the DOTS strategy in 1994. He set up the WHO global TB drug resistance surveillance project (1994) and TB surveillance & monitoring system (1995). At WHO, he worked on experimental regimens for treatment of latent infection in the mouse model, described the feasibility of preventive therapy in Africa, first reported the TB control crisis in Eastern Europe (1993), and co-developed estimates and projections of the global TB epidemic. In 1997-2003, he was Coordinator for Strategy and Operations focusing on surveillance; operational research; DOTS expansion world-wide; responses to TB/HIV and MDR-TB; and creation of the Global Buruli Ulcer initiative. As GTB Director for 15 years, he was responsible for setting norms, policies and standards on TB control, coordinating technical support to countries, monitoring the global situation, and developing innovative interventions through translation of new evidence into policies & practice and addressing system challenges such as community and private sector engagement. He directed the development of the Stop TB Strategy in 2006 and the End TB Strategy 2016-30 approved by the World Health Assembly in 2014.

He has worked in over 50 countries in all continents world-wide. He has published over 400 articles and chapters on the topics of TB, infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, AMR and global health in the most influential health journals and books, including in the last seven editions of the Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. He is among the top 10 most cited authors in the TB field, the top 25 Italian epidemiology scientists and the top 100 Italian scientists in general. His h-index is 112 and his work has been cited >60,000 times. He was editor of two editions (2006, 2009) of “Tuberculosis – A comprehensive International Approach”. He has served as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Universities of Brescia, Modena, and Pavia. He has taught in major universities world-wide including Harvard, Mc Gill, Geneva and Sydney, and has lectured at top international health conferences in over 60 countries. He is/has been member of BoDs and scientific/advisory committees of institutions such as TB Alliance, KNCV, CUAMM, NIH, McGill GHP. He worked as WHO focal point on global health for the G8 agenda in 2009 and led the WHO AMR policy and advocacy initiative for World Health Day 2011. He graduated from the University of Turin in Italy in 1980 and trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases in New York, where he was Chief Medical Resident at Cabrini Medical Centre, and in Boston, where he was an AIDS Clinical Research Fellow at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School. In 2005, he received the Princess Chichibu TB Global Award for his achievements in TB control. In 2009 he was nominated Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (F.R.C.P., London, UK).

In 2010 he received the Wolfheze 20-Year Jubilee Award (The Netherlands) for his contributions to modern TB control in Europe. In 2014 he was appointed a Foundation Fellow of the European Respiratory Society (F.E.R.S.). In 2014 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the India International Public Health Conference of the Indian Medical Association. In 2016 he was made Honorary Member of the Russian Society of Phtisiatry. In 2017, he received the USAID Global Leader Award “in recognition of innovative approach, scientific rigor, and dedicate service in partnership to End TB”.