Dr Masoud Dara
Special Representative of the Regional Director
Dr Masoud Dara is a physician and public health specialist from Belgium. In addition to his medical and clinical studies, he has completed several postgraduate courses at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health. He has more than 25 years of experience in public health programmes in forty countries across four WHO Regions, and mainly in eastern Europe and central Asia. Between 1998 and 2001, Dr Dara worked as a medical doctor and Programme Manager for Médecins Sans Frontières in Central Asia and as the Head of Belgian Red Cross in Kosovo. From 2001 to 2003, he served as a WHO Medical Officer in Moscow and from 2003 to 2010 as a Senior Consultant for the Royal Netherlands Tuberculosis Association. Between 2010 and 2014, he led the WHO/Europe’s TB and MDR-TB programme. From 2014 to 2016, based at the WHO Office at the European Union in Brussels, Dr Dara served as the WHO Senior Advisor for communicable diseases, health emergencies and humanitarian response. From October 2016 to October 2020, he coordinated the WHO Regional Office for Europe’s Communicable Diseases Department and led the Joint Tuberculosis, HIV and viral hepatitis programme. Between March and October 2019, he acted as the Director of the Division of Communicable Diseases. Dr Dara has authored more than 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals and several WHO guidelines. He speaks Persian, English, French, Dutch and intermediate Russian.