Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 22 November 2019: Dr Nicaise Ndembi has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Public Health in Africa for a term of four years. He was unanimously selected by members of the Editorial Board of the journal during the first board meeting held on 21 and 22 November 2019 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

A virologist and public health expert, Dr Ndembi is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention, Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, USA, and a Research Professor at the Global Affairs Section, Kanazawa University, Japan.

Dr Ndembi has served on several scientific advisory panels and continues to serve as an advisor on HIV drug resistance and control policy to Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health. He is a member of the PharmAccess Technical Advisory board for the Pan-African Study for Evaluation of Resistance in Africa and the WHO Resistance Network Technical Working Group. He has authored and co-authored more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He is Associate Editor for Frontiers in Public Health and Section Editor for the African Journal of Laboratory Medicine.

Dr Ndembi is a member of numerous international review boards and a principal investigator and co-investigator for the US National Health Institute grants. His main research interest includes HIV vaccine research particularly understanding of the protective immune responses, genomics epidemiology, microbiome, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, HIV diversity, and resistance to antiretroviral therapy.

The Journal of Public Health in Africa is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes high-quality original articles, reviews, comments and opinions on public health and related issues in Africa.

In 2018, Africa CDC signed an agreement with the publisher, Page Press, to make the journal its official journal. While Page Press continues to take responsibility for publishing, Africa CDC manages the editorial oversight and peer review system of the journal. This initiative by Africa CDC is to contribute to the increase in scientific knowledge and networking between Africa and the global community, ensure that public health research in Africa is adequately and accurately reported by Africans, and encourage more researchers from Africa to publish articles in the journal.

Dr Ndembi will serve as co-Editor-in-Chief along with Prof. Vittorio Colizzi, a Professor of Immunology at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and Dean, Faculty of Science and Technology, Evangelic University of Cameroon, who has previously been editor-in-chief of the journal.

Africa CDC wishes Dr Ndembi a successful term as editor-in-chief.