Islamabad: The newly reconstituted Board of Governors (BoG) of the National Institute of Health (NIH) has formally launched the process of appointing permanent heads of Pakistan’s two most critical public health institutions by interviewing shortlisted candidates for the posts of Executive Director of the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) and the Vaccine and Biological Products Center (VBPC) on Thursday and Friday.
The interviews will be the first major decision of the newly reconstituted Board, whose membership was completed after the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination notified the appointment of Dr Farhan Isa Abdullah as a member earlier this week.
The Board is chaired by renowned public health expert Prof Dr Zulfiqar A. Bhutta. Its appointed members include Dr Ambreen Anwar, Maj Gen (Retd) Dr Pervez Ahmed, Maj Gen (Retd) Dr Irfan Ali Mirza, Dr Saeed Sadiq Hamid, Dr Faisal Saud Dar and Dr Farhan Isa Abdullah, in addition to ex-officio members under the National Institute of Health (Reorganisation) Act, 2021.
Health ministry officials said advertisements for the two executive director positions were published in October last year and the recruitment process had reached an advanced stage. However, appointments remained pending due to administrative reasons before the previous Board completed its tenure.
According to officials, the ministry subsequently moved to reconstitute the Board to complete the hiring process. With the Board now fully functional, interviews are being held this week and recommendations are expected to be sent to the competent authority for final approval soon afterwards.
The appointments come at a time when the NIH itself has remained without a permanent Chief Executive Officer/Executive Director for several years and is currently being run by Acting Executive Director Dr Muhammad Salman. Both the Centre for Communicable Disease Control and the Vaccine and Biological Products Center have also remained without permanent leadership for a prolonged period.
The NIH is Pakistan’s premier public health institution, responsible for national disease surveillance, outbreak detection, epidemiological investigations, reference laboratory services, public health research and the production of selected vaccines and biological products.
Health officials said the institute has struggled to perform many of its core functions because of leadership gaps and systemic challenges. They acknowledged that weak disease surveillance remains one of the biggest concerns, with many provincial health departments, district health authorities and public hospitals failing to share disease data regularly with the NIH, limiting its ability to detect outbreaks early and coordinate a timely national response.
Officials also said the Vaccine and Biological Products Center has not achieved its intended production capacity, leaving Pakistan heavily dependent on imported vaccines and biological products. The country spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year on importing life-saving vaccines and biologicals for routine immunisation and other public health programmes.
Public health experts believe the appointment of permanent leadership at both institutions could help strengthen governance at the NIH, improve disease surveillance, revive local production of vaccines and biological products and enhance Pakistan’s preparedness for future infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies.
The interviews scheduled for Thursday and Friday are being seen as the first concrete step by the newly reconstituted Board to fill key leadership vacancies and restore the institutional capacity of Pakistan’s principal public health organisation.
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