PROFILE

Prof. Shindo serves as Head of Secretariat for WHO’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards (STAG-IH); an overarching experts advisory group for the programme on high-impact epidemics and pandemics.
As Senior Advisor in the Department of Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness at the Headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO), in Geneva, she overseas scientific and technical contents of the programme and reports to the senior leadership of the organization.
Prof. Shindo’s background is in medicine, infectious diseases, emergency & intensive care, and public health. She trained at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, Radcliff Infirmary in Oxford and Jikei University School of Medicine Hospital in Tokyo, where she also earned her PhD in Medical Science (microbiology and cell immunology), her laboratory work was mainly performed at Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology.
She went on to train in epidemiology/surveillance at the Infectious Disease Surveillance Centre of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, which is a WHO Collaborating Centre.
Since 2002, when she joined WHO, Dr Shindo has worked in epidemic intelligence and verification, risk assessment, outbreak response, influenza pandemic preparedness and planning.
She participated in WHO’s global responses to the outbreaks of SARS and avian influenza, viral hemorrhagic fever in Africa, the 2009 influenza pandemic, novel coronavirus infection, avian influenza H7N9 in China and Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa. She also participated in WHO’s response to the Indian Ocean tsunami.
In 2011, she was awarded a professorship by Jikei University School of Medicine.
From 2013 to 2015, Prof. Shindo led WHO’s Influenza and Respiratory Diseases Team, and in July 2015, she was assigned to her senior management position of Coordinator of Expert networks. The three networks – Epidemic Diseases Clinical Assessment and Response Network (EDCARN), Global Laboratories Alliance for Diagnosis of High-threat Pathogens (GLAD HP), and Epidemic Modelling and Forecasting – draw on resources from across WHO’s diverse disease programmes and from experts around the world.
During emergencies, she serves as a core member of WHO’s Strategic Health Operations Centre, which lies at the heart of the Organization’s outbreak response.