Dr Mario Raviglione has been director of the Stop TB Department since 2003.
He joined the World Health Organization in 1991 as a junior professional officer sponsored by the Italian Government, to work on TB/HIV and TB epidemiology in Europe. Later, he became responsible for setting up the global drug-resistance surveillance project and the new TB surveillance and monitoring system. Between 1999 and 2003, he was Coordinator for Tuberculosis Strategy and Operations globally, taking charge particularly of surveillance and programme monitoring; operational research on community and private practitioner involvement in TB control; TB/HIV interaction; multi drug-resistance TB management in developing countries; and [DOTS expansion] worldwide. Currently, as Director of the Stop TB Department of WHO, he is responsible for strategies and policies and works through a network of TB experts at all levels of the Organization. He has worked with many countries worldwide in improving their TB control efforts.
He has had over 200 articles published in influential health journals and books including TB chapters in the last three editions of the prestigious Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. He was editor of the book "Tuberculosis: a Comprehensive International Approach", 3rd Edition, 2006, which presents the state of the art in the tuberculosis field and is co-authored by over 100 scientific authorities world-wide. Under his guidance, the new Stop TB Strategy of the World Health Organization has been formulated and launched in 2006. As a leading expert in TB, he serves as a visiting professor in various medical schools and also lectures at international health conferences on global TB and international health issues. He has been a member of the Stop TB Partnership Coordinating Board since its establishment in 2001. He graduated from the University of Turin in Italy in 1980, and later trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases in New York (where he also was Chief Medical Resident at Cabrini's Medical Centre) and Boston, where he was appointed an AIDS Fellow at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He has recently received the Princess Chichibu TB Global Award for his achievements in TB control.