APMEN announces new co-Director

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Fe Esperanza Caridad Espino (Effie) as the new Director of Research Support and Country Engagement of Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network (APMEN). Effie is a pediatric infectious disease specialist and has a graduate degree in tropical health. Effie brings to her new role an impressive record in research in malaria and other infectious diseases with the Philippines’s Department of Health and extensive experience overseas. Effie has taken up her new post with APMEN in March.

Effie is making a move from the Department of Parasitology and National Reference Laboratory for Malaria and Parasitic NTDs in Manila, where she was the Head of the Department. Effie’s laboratory is also the designated WHO Collaborating Center for Malaria.

Wealth of experience

For more than 25 years, Effie has been involved in research in malaria, dengue and in the past few years, neglected parasitic infectious diseases at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) of the Philippines’ Department of Health. She also led the Philippines Therapeutic Efficacy Surveillance for first-line antimalarial drugs for P. falciparum and P. vivax; studies in G6PD deficiency and P. knowlesi, and enhanced malaria surveillance.

Effie has worked for several years in WHO-TDR sponsored clinical trials for malaria and visceral leishmaniasis, among others, in Bangladesh, China, India, Kenya, Tanzania and Thailand. More recently, Effie established RITM as a WHO-supported regional training center for good health research practices for the WHO Western Pacific Region.

APMEN’s network is currently recruiting for the other co-Director of Program Management and Governance, to support the achievement of a malaria-free Asia Pacific.