Tomoya Saito, MD, MPH, PhD is the director of the Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases of Japan. As a distinguished expert in public health emergency preparedness and response, he serves as a member of the cluster response task force in the MHLW COVID-19 response headquarters and the WHO Review Committee on the functioning of the International Health Regulations during the COVID-19 Response, and as an advisor to the Coordination Meeting for COVID-19 countermeasures at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo 2020. Previously, Dr. Saito was the director of the Department of Health Crisis Management at the National Institute of Public Health. From 2011 to 2014, Dr. Saito was a medical officer at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) of Japan and responded to several public health events such as Fukushima nuclear power plant incident and emerging diseases such as influenza A/H7N9, MERS, SFTS and Ebola virus diseases.
Before joining MHLW, Dr. Saito was an instructor in the Department of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, School of Medicine, Keio University. He received his M.D. from the School of Medicine, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, his M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Medicine, Keio University.
