Benedetta Allegranzi

Benedetta is an infectious diseases specialist, with Diplomas in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (University of Liverpool, UK) and Clinical Research (University of Geneva, Switzerland). From 1994 to 2006, she worked as infectious diseases and infection prevention and control (IPC) specialist and assistant professor at the University of Verona, Italy, as well as in Burundi, Malaysia, and some other countries.

She now works at the World Health Organization (WHO) HQ since 2006, as the technical lead of the IPC Hub and the IPC Taskforce and co-lead of the IPC pillar of the WHO response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Benedetta is also an Adjoint Professor at the Global Health Institute and at the Infection Control Programme, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva.

With her team, she has provided technical support to many countries on all continents and has led research in the field of healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistance, and IPC; she has been responsible for the development of many new global IPC guidelines and implementation strategies and tools, and two global campaigns on injection safety and hand hygiene (in 182 countries). She currently leads the development of the global strategy, global action plan, and monitoring framework for IPC, to be adopted by Member States at the World Health Assembly in 2023-24.

She is the leading or senior author of 65 WHO official publications, author or co-author of over 200 scientific publications, and more than 20 book chapters.