“A prepared India is a prepared world”

Dr Roderico H. Ofrin joined WHO India as WHO Representative beginning July 2020. Dr Ofrin comes with a rich experience of over two decades in public health, mostly in WHO’s South-East Asia Region. His extensive experience and expertise covers critical issues impacting health of people in the 11 Member countries, including India.

Before taking up his current position, Dr Ofrin was the Regional Emergencies Director for WHO South-East Asia Region providing strategic technical guidance and operational leadership to the ongoing response to the global COVID-19 pandemic across the Region.

Associated with WHO since 2002, Dr Ofrin has served in multiple roles starting as a Public Health Officer in a war-ravaged island nation of Timor-Leste, assisting in setting up of its health systems.

A major part of his career has been in the public health emergencies programme. From being involved in the response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami, a mega disaster that severely impacted multiple countries of WHO South-East Asia countries, Dr Ofrin went on to lead WHO’s response on the ground during major events such as cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, the 2015 massive earthquake in Nepal, the ebola outbreak in Liberia, and most recently the Rohingya crisis.

Working in a Region prone to emergencies, Dr Ofrin significantly contributed to several innovative measures for strengthening emergency preparedness and response in the Region, that were later replicated globally. The South-East Asia Regional Benchmarks for emergency preparedness and response and the South-East Asia Regional Health Emergency Fund (SEARHEF), are among the notable ones.

As Director Emergencies programme for the Region, Dr Ofrin gave a fillip to the flagship programme on reversing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and ‘One Health’ Regional Tripartite (FAO-OIE-WHO) initiative.

Leading Non-Communicable Diseases and Environmental Health Department during a brief stint in 2015, he worked with several teams across the Region on climate change, tobacco control, food safety, health promotion, nutrition and injury prevention.

Born in 1968 in the Philippines, Dr Ofrin holds a Doctor of Medicine from the University of the Philippines; and a Master’s in Public Health from Hebrew University Hadassah, Israel. Dr Ofrin was conferred the Director General’s Reward for leading Nepal Earthquake Response and Recovery. To his credit are numerous publications that he has authored and co-authored on emergency and preparedness and risk management.