Tochi Okwor
Dr. Tochi Okwor is the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) & Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Programme Coordinator at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). She also chairs Nigeria’s National AMR Coordination Committee (AMRCC) and has over 20 years of experience in public health.
She has played a pioneering role in the institutionalisation of AMR and IPC in Nigeria through her involvement in policy development, human resources mapping, technical content development and resource mobilization. In her current role as the National AMR and IPC Programme Coordinator, Dr. Okwor leads Nigeria’s efforts to convene a One Health Governance group to coordinate Nigeria’s AMR control activities. She developed the first strategy aimed at the institutionalization of IPC in Nigeria using a phased approach to set up and support IPC committees and teams at the state and health facility levels. This ‘Turn Nigeria Orange’ strategy is Nigeria’s official national IPC programme, designed in alignment with WHO core components for an IPC programme. Under her leadership as Chair of Nigeria’s AMRCC she has overseen the establishment of antibiotic stewardship programmes at health facilities in Nigeria and is determined to address access issues in the country.
She also leads the IPC Pillar of Nigeria’s COVID-19 Emergency Operations Centre. In this role, she rapidly pulled together a multi-partner, multi-sector, and multi-agency team to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in Nigerian health facilities and ensure the safety of patients and healthcare workers as they interact. She has been on many national and international committees and is currently Co-chair of the WHO Monkeypox Clinical Management and IPC Guideline Development Group, and a member of the WHO COVID-19 and Ebola Virus Disease Guidelines Development Group of experts. She also Co-Chairs the IPC Technical Working Group of the Africa Task Force for Novel Coronavirus.
Dr. Okwor is a graduate of the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria with an MPH from the University of Lagos, a Master’s in Occupational Medicine from the University of Manchester and a Postgraduate Certificate in Infection Control from the University of Essex. She is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria.