Welcome to the newcomers Ankur and Iro

Ankur Rakesh

Ankur is a doctor and epidemiologist specializing in infectious diseases. He has worked as a physician and public health researcher in both the private and public sectors, focusing his work on the principles of the whole-of-society approach, ensuring that no one is left behind. Over the last 14 years, he has worked in India, Uganda, Malawi, Nigeria, Zambia, Yemen, Bangladesh, DRC, Guinea and Mozambique in field projects for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, refugee health, floods and outbreaks of various diseases such as Measles, Cholera, Meningitis and Marburg haemorrhagic fever.

In addition, he has worked with Epicentre (Paris) and Southern Africa Medical Unit (Cape Town) and played an instrumental rol in setting up the South Asia site for the ‘Global Health and Humanitarian Medicine’ course together with MSF-UK (Manson Unit) and academic medical institutions in India. He is a member of a group of doctors who came together to provide voluntary support during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic through teleconsultation and is a recipient of the National ‘Atal Swasthya Bhushan’ award for dedication to professional excellence.

His last assignment was with the WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE), WHO Headquarters in Geneva, where he supported the operationalization of the Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management (HEDRM) Framework, CADRI partnership, Safe hospital initiative, Health sector reporting of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, Health for Peace initiative and the HEDRM research handbook.

He looks forward to being back with MSF and hopes to contribute positively to the work already being done by the LuxOR team and colleagues in OCB.

Iro Evlampidou

Iro is a medical doctor, specialized in General Medicine, field epidemiologist and holder of master’s degree in Public Health and Health Care Administration. Iro has published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has presented her studies at numerous conferences, including MSF's Operational Research Days.

Since 2001, Iro has worked with MSF in the field and headquarters, in multiple roles (including mission-level medical director) and in various contexts in regular projects and natural or complex emergencies (i.e. Zambia, Myanmar, South Sudan, Kenya, Greece) and in different projects (e.g. primary/secondary care, mental health, TB, sexual and reproductive health, malnutrition, malaria, measles, etc.). Since 2014, she mainly worked as an epidemiologist (i.e. Ebola-Liberia/Belgium, Europe migration/Refugee Task Force, cyclone/cholera-Mozambique) but also as a project medical officer (Europe migration/Greece).

Outside MSF, Iro has collaborated with research institutes (e.g. ISGlobal Barcelona) in environmental and non-communicable diseases epidemiology (e.g. water quality and bladder cancer, health indicators, etc.) and is an invited lecturer on refugee and migrant health and rapid health assessments in emergencies. Her most recent post (2019-2021) was as a scientific coordinator in the Mediterranean and Black Sea Field Epidemiology Training Programme (MediPIET). Iro is part of a worldwide network of epidemiologists and the current elected President of the Advisory Board of the EPIET Alumni Network (EAN) (2021-present).