Professor Subhash Hira

Professor Subhash Hira is a medical doctor who specializes in Infectious Diseases, Dermatology/STI, and Public Health. His academic qualifications are: MBBS; DV&D (Vadodara, India), Diplomate in Venereology (London) and Board Certifications in Tropical Medicine & MPH (USA). He has had a distinguished 40-year career during which he held senior positions, namely Director of National STI/HIV Control Program of the Zambian Ministry of Health & Lecturer at the University of Zambia; Associate Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda (USA); Professor at the University of Texas-Houston (USA); Technical Advisor to NACO (Ministry of Health, Government of India) and Director, ARCON (1993-2003), Program Leader at The World Bank, Washington DC; Team Leader at the World Health Organization, Indonesia; Pro-Vice Chancellor at Mahatma Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Mumbai consulting with a host of UN and multilateral agencies. He served as the Vice-Chair/member of the Technical Review Panel of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, Geneva (2014-2018, 2020-2023). Currently, he is also a Professor of Global Health at the University of Washington-Seattle, and Regent of Governing Council of President Levy Mwanawasa Medical University-Lusaka, Zambia.

Professor Hira’s academic career as a teaching faculty has been at the following Universities: University of Zambia; Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, USA; The University of Texas, Houston, USA; Mahatma Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Mumbai; and the Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi.

Professor Hira has the cross-cultural experience of living and working in challenging environments across the world. For most of his career he has been involved with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases and has several firsts to his credit. These include designing syndromic treatment for STI and popularizing it through WHO, Geneva (1981), published evidence in 1982 that HIV was heterosexually transmitted among Zambians, published evidence of GUD/STI as co-factors in HIV transmission (1985), published evidence of perinatal and breast milk transmission of HIV in Zambia (1988), initiated antiretroviral treatment (ART) in India in 1996, and national scaling-up of ART in Indonesia (2008). He has over 100 scientific publications in international medical journals and has contributed chapters in international medical textbooks. He was awarded the Presidential medal for excellence in medical research (1991) at USUHS, Bethesda. He participated in global committees on MDGs, gender equality in health, diagnostics, therapeutics, health policy analysis and formulation at both global and national levels, management guidelines, and M&E of national programmes. He was short-listed by the Indian Prime Minister’s Office/Cabinet Secretary for Director General-cum-Secretary ICMR and Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health, India. Currently, he is an invited member on several WHO review panels on COVID-19,  and an health expert on “Vision India Committee” designing the future of the health sector in India under the aegis of Niti Aayog, New Delhi.

Field of Expertise: Infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, Ebola), COVID-19, MDGs, epidemiology, research, national disease control programmes, universal health coverage, health systems, urban health, cost analysis, and M & E.