Director of Health and HIV/AIDS

(Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Achebe)

Dr. Kechi Achebe

Director of Health and HIV/AIDS

Dr. Kechi Achebe is the director for the Office of Health & HIV/AIDS at Africare.  She is responsible for coordinating Africare’s technical assistance throughout Africa in the area of health and HIV/AIDS, which includes maternal and child health, reproductive health, polio eradication, malaria control and treatment, health systems strengthening and infectious disease prevention and control including, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. She also serves as the principle investigator for Africare’s PEPFAR-funded comprehensive HIV/AIDS projects in South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Dr. Achebe has more than 18 years of experience in clinical medicine and public health, and has dedicated her life to international health development with a major focus on African countries.  In 2004, Dr. Achebe joined Africare to help broaden its health and HIV/AIDS portfolio and develop a set of core activities in service delivery and infectious diseases.

Prior to her work at Africare, Dr. Achebe served in various capacities with Pathfinder International, BASICS II and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Dr. Achebe is a fellow of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, serves as an advisory board member of the International Institute of Health Technology Development (IIHTD), is a member of the Civil Society (CS) advisory team to the CS board of UNITAID. She is also a member of various professional groups including STOP-TB/WHO, American Public Health Association (APHA), Roll Back Malaria (RBM) partnership and the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (IAPAC).

She is a licensed medical practitioner and has authored and co-authored several articles published in peer-reviewed journals, technical documents and books that give her an opportunity to further examine ways of eliminating health disparities throughout the world.

Dr. Achebe holds a medical degree from the University of Benin in Nigeria and received her master’s in public health from Boston University’s School of Public Health, where she was awarded a certificate in finance and management in international health, and completed a research fellowship in infectious disease epidemiology at the Boston Medical Center.