Anita Ashni Shah is an epidemiologist with experience in infectious disease epidemiology, outbreak investigation, applied research, and information management across the public health sector.
She currently works as a Senior Epidemiology Scientist in the UK Health Security Agency’s Rapid Investigations Team. Prior to this, she was a field epidemiologist with the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST), a partnership between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the UK Health Security Agency, funded with UK aid by the UK Department of Health and Social Care. The UK-PHRST responds to disease outbreaks around the world before they develop into health emergencies and conducts rigorous operational research to improve epidemic preparedness.
Prior to this, she completed the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) based at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands (RIVM). Previously, she worked as part of the Health Emergencies Programme at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, supporting the West Africa Ebola virus disease outbreak from 2014 to 2016. She was the focal point for publishing WHO Disease Outbreak News Reports from 2016 to 2019. Additionally, during her time at WHO, she gained field experience during several international deployments to Liberia, the Republic of the Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to support outbreaks of Ebola virus disease and Yellow fever.
Anita Ashni Shah holds a Master of Public Health with a specialisation in epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a BSc in biomedical sciences from Aston University.