Shigeru Omi
Shigeru Omi is the President of the Japan Community Health Care Organization. He previously served as Regional Director of the Western Pacific Regional Office for the World Health Organization. He has been a member of the World Health Organization Executive Board since 2013.Career
During his tenure with the World Health Organization, he is credited with the eradication of polio in the 37 countries in the Western Pacific Region in 2000 as part of the Regional Polio Eradication Initiative.
In 2006, Omi was a candidate for Director-General of the WHO but Margaret Chan was appointed instead. Between 2008 and 2009, he was part of a High-Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems, which had been launched to help strengthen health systems in the 49 poorest countries in the world and was chaired by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and World Bank president Robert Zoellick.
From 2009 until 2012, Omi taught public health at Jichi Medical University in Japan. He was the President of the 66th World Health Assembly in 2013. In 2016, he was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Global Health Crises Task Force, jointly chaired by Jan Eliasson, Jim Yong Kim, Margaret Chan and Helen Clark.
In 2020, Omi is vice chair of government panel of experts in COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.
