Speaker Profile

BIOGRAPHY

Noah Fongwen is the diagnostics access coordinator at Africa CDC. He holds an MD (Doctor of Medicine) degree from the University of Buea, Cameroon, and a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of Glasgow, UK. He completed a fellowship in infectious disease diagnostics and a Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) at the Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health, UK.
At Africa CDC he leads the Africa Collaborative Initiative to Advance Diagnostics (AFCAD). He is responsible for local manufacturing of diagnostics, biobanking, diagnostics development and evaluation, and regulation through streamlining regulatory harmonisation processes in collaboration with the AMDF and AMRH programmes of AUDA-NEPAD. He is also responsible for leading the engagements with policymakers to ensure diagnostic access policies are developed, adopted and implemented by African countries. Noah is now mainly based at the Africa CDC HQ, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he is working with the AMRH/AMA to establish a continental regulatory pathway for Africa that will accelerate access to diagnostics to safeguard the health of Africans. As part of this work, he is leading key continental diagnostic access initiatives such as the Africa Biobanking Network, the Africa CDC Network of Centres of Excellence for Diagnostic Test Evaluation, and the Diagnostics Advisory Committee (DAC).
Noah has co-directed courses on diagnostics for AMR, lectured in the NTD module, and facilitated the pandemic course at LSHTM. He has been PI and co-PI for grants. Currently, he is co-PI for an NIHR grant to develop diagnostics for vaccine-preventable respiratory diseases.
He has authored and co-authored more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.