It is my pleasure to introduce and welcome Dr. Rick Steketee, MD, MPH as the new Deputy U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator. Dr. Steketee will assume his Deputy role for the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) in August.
Dr. Steketee is a medical epidemiologist with over 30 years of public health experience in infectious diseases and is an internationally recognized expert in malaria. He spent 21 years as an active duty member of the U.S. Public Health Service, with 15 of those years working on malaria at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). During that time, he spent approximately 5 years in Malawi, evaluating programmatic approaches to controlling malaria in pregnancy and childhood, eventually becoming CDC’s Malaria Branch Chief in 2000, where he managed a staff of 75 professionals engaged in malaria prevention and control efforts in the U.S. and overseas.
Subsequently, Dr. Steketee joined PATH in 2005 and worked as the Science Director for the Malaria Control Program at PATH supporting field work in sub-Saharan African countries. He has been the Director of PATH’s Malaria Control and Elimination Program (MCEP) and Director of the Malaria Control and Elimination Partnership in Africa (MACEPA) since 2015. As the Director of MCEP, he provided leadership across a broad portfolio of malaria programs, including PMI’s MalariaCare project – a 5-year PMI-funded 16-country program operating in sub-Saharan Africa and the Mekong Region in southeast Asia in support of malaria diagnosis and treatment in PMI focus countries; the Program for the Advancement of Malaria Outcomes (PAMO) – a PMI-funded Zambia country program; and the Malaria Control and Elimination Partnership in Africa (MACEPA) – a multi-country malaria control and now elimination effort in sub-Saharan African malaria-endemic countries operating since 2004 and currently engaged in Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal and Zambia.
He has worked closely with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the World Bank, the Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB and Malaria, and the RBM Partnership to End Malaria and participated on RBM working groups including the Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group, the Harmonization Working Group, the Malaria in Pregnancy Working Group and the Case Management Working Group. Dr. Steketee has participated in numerous WHO Expert Review Groups on malaria and is a current member of the WHO Malaria Policy Advisory Committee.
Over the past twelve years, PMI, led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented together with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) [PDF, 1.6MB], has worked with partner countries to drive progress in malaria. Together with national malaria control program leadership, communities, local partners, donors, faith-based groups, and multilateral organizations, PMI works to ensure effective malaria interventions reach people where they live.
Again, on behalf of our interagency partnership and teams in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., we welcome Dr. Steketee to PMI.
Dr. Ken Staley
U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator, U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI)