From outbreaks to endgame, the fight to end polio with Dr Hamid Jafari
Pumphandle Lecture 2026 with Dr Hamid Jafari
The John Snow Society Annual Pumphandle Lecture will be given by Dr Hamid Jafari, entitled "From Outbreaks to Endgame, The Fight to End Polio".
The lecture will begin at 17:30 and close at 19:00. This will be followed by the Society’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) from 19:00 to 19:30. All society members are encouraged to attend the AGM, either in person or online. After the AGM, members are warmly invited to repair to the John Snow public house in Broadwick Street, Soho, a short walk from LSHTM.
Speaker
Dr Hamid Jafari
Dr Hamid Jafari has been a major leader of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) for the past two decades. Originally from Pakistan, he obtained his MBBS degree from Sind Medical College, Karachi University. After a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School and further training in pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School and then in infectious diseases at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, he joined the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) at the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) in 1992, and rose to become Director of the Global Immunization Division at the CDC from 2004-06.
He was Project Manager of the World Health Organization’s National Polio Surveillance Project in India (2007-2012) and later Director of Global Polio Eradication at World Health Organization Headquarters, Geneva, and the overall technical lead of the GPEI from 2012 to 2016. From 2016 to 2019 he was Principal Deputy Director, Center for Global Health, at CDC. He then served as Director, Polio Eradication, World Health Organization, Eastern Mediterranean Region until the end of 2025. He led polio eradication efforts, in close collaboration with other partners in the GPEI, in 22 Regional Member States that include Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two remaining wild polio endemic countries globally.
Event notices
- Please note that you can join this event in person or you can join the session remotely
- Please note that the recording link will be listed on this page when available
Admission
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