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 an 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.

Since 2006, Benedetta has worked at the World Health Organization (WHO) Headquarters. She has been the Head of the WHO IPC Unit, in the Integrated Health Services Department, (Universal Health Coverage/Life Course Division) and the technical lead for the IPC Hub, Taskforce, and the Global IPC Network, until March 2025. Since April 2025, she is the director of the Communicable Diseases Department at the WHO Regional Office for The Eastern Mediterranean.

She also has the title of adjoint professor, at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, associated with the Infection Control Programme, at the University Hospitals of Geneva, and with the Global Health Institute. 

With her teams, she has provided technical support to many countries in all WHO regions and has led research in the field of healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistance, and IPC implementation and monitoring; 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 led the development of the WHO global strategy, global action plan, and monitoring framework for IPC, adopted by Member States at the World Health Assemblies in 2023 and 2024.

She is the leading or senior author of more than 100 WHO official publications, author or co-author of over 200 scientific journals, and author or editor of more than 20 scientific books or book chapters.