Dr Hajime Inoue was appointed as a Senior Advisor to the Director-General on 20 September 2015 and Special Representative for Antimicrobial Resistance in the office of the WHO Director-General on 21 November 2016. At WHO he assists the Director-General on high-level political engagements across WHO’s operational clusters. Prior to this appointment Dr Inoue has served as the director for infectious disease control at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan, where he managed the first major outbreaks of dengue in Japan in recent history.

Dr Inoue started his professional career as paediatric resident in Tokyo and then served as a field officer in the rural Philippines while working for the Maternal and Child Health program. After post-graduate study in public health, specialising in global health, Dr Inoue joined Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 1996, where he acquired a wide range of technical experience in public health, including hospital management, health insurance, pharmaceutical regulation, infectious disease control, and others.

Dr Inoue has previously worked in the secretariat of the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific, and has also served as a member of the governing bodies of WHO, the Global Fund, UNAIDS and IARC.