Keiji Fukuda
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
University of Vermont (MD)
University of California, Berkeley (MPH)
Keiji Fukuda | |
|---|---|
| 福田 敬二 | |
| Born | 1955[1] |
| Education | Oberlin College (BA) University of Vermont (MD) University of California, Berkeley (MPH) |
| Known for | Influenza research |
| Spouse | Holly Fukuda[2] |
| Children | 2[3] |
| Parent(s) | David Minoru Fukuda Michiko Fukuda[4] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Epidemiology |
| Institutions | University of Hong Kong World Health Organization Centers for Disease Control and Prevention |
Keiji Fukuda (福田 敬二, Fukuda Keiji; born 1955)[1] is a Japanese-American physician and epidemiologist, specializing in influenza epidemiology. He was an Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 2009 to 2016,[5] and the Director of the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) between 2017[6] and 2021.[7]
Fukuda was born in Tokyo, Japan,[8] to a physician family.[9] His parents were physicians; his father, David Minoru Fukuda, was an anesthesiologist and his mother, Michiko Fukuda (née Nakamura) was an obstetrician-gynecologist, although she did not practice in the United States.[4] The Fukudas immigrated from Japan to Vermont in 1955, and the senior Fukuda started practicing anesthesiology in Barre, Vermont, in 1957.[10] Fukuda's mother died in 1993 and his father in 2006.[4] Fukuda's older sister, Mariko, is a teacher and his younger brother, Christopher, is a urologist.[11]
At the urging of one of his high school teachers, Fukuda went to Oberlin College in 1973 for undergraduate studies, finishing in 1978.[5][9] Initially reluctant to follow in the family footsteps and hoping to become a filmmaker, he eventually pursued medicine at the University of Vermont College of Medicine (now Robert Larner College of Medicine),[9] obtaining his MD degree in 1984.[5]
He stayed in Tamil Nadu in South India for 6 months between his second and third year at medical school, working with indigenous tribes. It confirmed his interest in international medicine. He next completed his internal medicine residency and then a chief residency at Mount Zion Hospital (now part of the UCSF Medical Center) in San Francisco.[9] Fukuda entered the University of California, Berkeley in 1988 and obtained a Master of Public Health (MPH) in epidemiology 1 year later.[5]
Career
After completing his MPH, Fukuda worked in San Francisco Bay Area in clinics that focus on leprosy and tuberculosis, and then moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he spent 2 years studying in the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).[9]
Fukuda joined the Viral Exanthems and Herpesvirus Branch at CDC after finishing the EIS program.[5][15] Because of the idea that chronic fatigue syndrome was related to chronic infections of herpesvirus, this group was also responsible for this disease.[9] In 1994, Fukuda led a committee that revised the definition of the disease,[16][17] which has since become the most widely used clinical and research definition of the illness.[18]
In 1996, Fukuda became the chief of the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch at the CDC Influenza Division, after the Division approached him.[9][19] In this position, he has led investigations into outbreaks of avian flu, including the one in 1997[20] in Hong Kong and another in 2004 in Vietnam.[9] He was on the WHO expert panel investigating the 2003 SARS outbreak in China.[21][22]
Fukuda joined the WHO in 2005 and became a scientist at the Global Influenza Program, and was promoted to coordinator in 2006 and director in 2008.[5] In March 2009, Fukuda was appointed WHO Assistant Director-General ad interim for Health Security and Environment.[23] The media referred to him as the WHO "flu chief" during the 2009 swine flu pandemic,[24][25] when he was the face of the WHO to the media.[26][27][28] He admitted the communication from the WHO during the pandemic was inadequate.[29] He was also the Special Adviser on Pandemic Influenza to the Director-General throughout the pandemic, from October 2009 to August 2010.[30]
Fukuda officially became the Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment in 2010, until 2015 when he switched to the role of Assistant Director-General and Special Representative of the Director General for Antimicrobial Resistance.[5][31]
In December 2016, Fukuda joined the School of Public Health at Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, as clinical professor,[5][6] and also took up the position of School Director the next year.[6] During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was one of four government advisors[32] and often gave global and local media interviews.[3][33][34]
In October 2020, HKU reportedly would not renew his contract after it expired at the end of 2021,[8][35] citing Fukuda's age has passed the university retirement age of 60.[8] However, there were news that Fukuda has passed university's academic review, but the President and Vice-chancellor Xiang Zhang vetoed the renewal, as he did not meet the requirement of "top academic achievement".[36][37][38] He left the government COVID-19 expert panel on December 1,[39][40] and HKU on December 8, 2021,[3][41] moving back to Atlanta, Georgia for retirement.[2][42]
