FAO SUSTAINABLE LIVESTOCK TECHNICAL NETWORK, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION AND CODEX ALIMENTARIUS

WEBINAR ON

FAO AND WHO ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT MONITORING AND SURVEILLANCE OF ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE IN THE FOOD

AND AGRICULTURE SECTORS MODERATORS’, SPEAKERS’ and PANELLISTS’ BIOs

Jorge Matheu Alvarez

Jorge Matheu, MSc, is Team Lead, Department of Global Coordination and Partnership

for Antimicrobial Resistance (GCP), World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva,

Switzerland. He is a chemistry biologist from the University of San Carlos in Guatemala

with a MSc in Public Health from the Rafael Landivar University. From 2000 to 2009, he

was Head of the Bacteriology Department in the National Laboratory of Health of the

Ministry of Health, Guatemala and National Coordinator of the National Surveillance

System on AMR, as well as Laboratory Coordinator of the Food-borne Diseases Surveillance and Laboratory

Coordinator of Pneumonia and Meningitis Surveillance. From 2010 - 2015 he was with the Pan American

Health Organization, as specialist on antimicrobial resistance surveillance supporting the Latin American

Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network. From 2015 to 2019, he coordinated the capacity building

activities on Integrated Surveillance of AMR in the Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses in WHO. In

2020 he worked as Team Lead for Laboratory Strengthening and Integrated Surveillance of AMR in the

Department of Surveillance, Prevention and Control of AMR in WHO. Since January 2021, he is Team Lead

in the Impact Initiatives and Research Coordination Unit in the department of GCP, AMR Division at WHO.

He represents WHO in the Codex Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance.

Daniela Battaglia Daniela Battaglia is Livestock Production Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization

of the United Nations (FAO), coordinator of the FAO Sustainable Livestock Technical

Network and member of the FAO Working Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, where she

is she focal point for animal production and animal feed. Daniela holds an M.Sc. in

Agricultural Science and another in Tropical Animal Health and Production from the

University of Edinburgh, UK. Before joining FAO in 2001, Daniela has worked for nine years

for the European Commission and has been based in several countries, including Belgium, UK, Peru,

Suriname, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Israel and Tunisia.

Gracia Brisco

Focal point for Codex Alimentarius food safety normative work on food of animal origin

including feed and its impact on food safety. Some key lines of work she leads in Codex

which are relevant to this webinar are foodborne AMR, contaminants and residues of

veterinary drugs and pesticides and contaminants in food and feed.

She is currently deployed to the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva, Switzerland to

strengthen cooperation between the Codex Alimentarius Commission and international

organizations based in Geneva, in particular the World Trade Organization and the World Health

Organization, and to provide support to the Liaison Office on regulatory and trade issues related

to food safety.

Sarah Cahill

Currently a Senior Food Standard Officers with the Codex Alimentarius, she leads

the activities related to regional Codex coordinating committees, monitoring and

implementation of the Codex Strategic plan 2020-25, awareness raising of Codex

standards and improving engagement in standard development and uptake as well as

supporting technical areas of work such as antimicrobial resistance. Until April 2018

she led the FAO JEMRA Secretariat, responsible for overseeing the provision of scientific

advice on microbiological hazards in a wide range of foods, from fresh produce to meat and fish. She was

an active participant in the Codex standard setting processes, facilitating the consideration of scientific

advice in international standard setting. In addition, she has worked on the provision of scientific advice to

other UN agencies (WFP, UNICEF) on the safety of specific foods destined for food insecure and vulnerable

populations. She also worked on increasing the accessibility of risk assessment and scientific advice to the

FAO and Codex Membership through the development of tools and approaches to support evidence-based

decision-making in the wider management of food safety issues as well as capacity development activities.

Sarah also served as the food safety focal point on AMR where she was involved in the development of

FAOs action plan on AMR (2016-2020) and served as the technical lead for a global capacity development

project to engage the food and agriculture sector in countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia in efforts to

address AMR. She also worked on the development of scientific advice on AMR to support the work of the

Codex Task Force on AMR.

She has a Bachelor’s degree in science and worked in the dairy and beverage sectors before going on to

receive her Ph.D. in food microbiology from University College Dublin, Ireland in 1999. She is a regular

contributor to international food safety conferences and an active member of the International Association

of Food Protection.

Alejandro Dorado Garcia Alejandro is a veterinary epidemiologist with experience in the private sector,

academia, public health, and international development. He holds a Doctor of

Veterinary Medicine degree from Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), and an

MSc and PhD in Epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance from Utrecht University (The

Netherlands). He joined FAO HQ in Rome early in 2018 where he works as an Animal

Health Officer. He coordinates and provides technical support for implementing a

number of projects related to AMR, especially in the areas of promotion of good

practices, and surveillance and monitoring of AMR / AMU. In his work, he continuously engages with

various units/departments at HQs and supports intensively the work in the regional offices in Africa, Asia

and Latin America.

Omar Elhassan

Omar Elhassan is an Environmental Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Water

Management Expert working for Land and Water Division at the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Within FAO, Omar develops projects

addressing the environmental dimensions of AMR in a cross-sectoral and One Health

context and integrated water resources management approaches that recognize the

intrinsic role of water in protecting human, animal and ecosystem health, such as

strengthening global food safety through improved water quality control systems. He is also a member of

the FAO Working Group on AMR.

Omar is a Plant and Environmental Soil Scientist from Texas A&M University and previously worked as a

consultant for FAO Aquaculture Biosecurity. He presented at various workshops in India, Malaysia and a

U.S. Congressional Briefing towards improving prudent use of antimicrobials and understanding of AMR.

Before joining FAO, he worked with small non-profit organizations in forging and maintaining partnerships

and towards providing access to clean water to underrepresented rural communities in Guatemala,

Nicaragua and El Salvador through the dissemination of knowledge, skills, and tools necessary for self-

sufficiency.

Mary Joy Gordoncillo

Mary Joy Gordoncillo is the Antimicrobial Regional Project Coordinator at the

Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Disease Operations (ECTAD) of the Food

and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. Part of her

work has been on developing tools, strategies, and innovative solutions to mitigate

antimicrobial resistance in the food and agriculture sector in Asia. Prior to joining FAO,

she served as the Science and One Health Coordinator of the World Organisation for

Animal Health (OIE) Sub-Regional Representation for South-East Asia, and as assistant

professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of the Philippines. She holds a Doctor of

Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of the Philippines, Masters of Tropical Veterinary Science

from James Cook University in Australia, and a PhD from Michigan State University USA where she

specialized in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in livestock animals.

Tabitha Kimani Tabitha Kimani works as socio-economist and veterinary at the FAO Emergency Centre

for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD); she is also Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)

Coordinator for Eastern Africa at FAO Office in Kenya. Tabitha holds a PhD in

Agricultural Economics and a Bachelor degree in Veterinary Medicine, both obtained in

Kenya. She is an animal health socio-economist currently coordinating and providing

technical support to several FAO programmes namely on AMR, Global Health Security and Emerging

pandemics threats and Transboundary animal diseases (TADs). More specifically, she also supports animal

health economics, value chains analysis and policy formulation and analysis related activities, implemented

through the Global Health Security and Emerging pandemics threats programme. With respect to AMR,

Tabitha Kimani has strong interests in the intersection of animal health problems and livelihoods as well as

finding ways to overcome barriers to promote the adoption of good animal health practices by value chain

actors. She has undertaken socio-economic analysis of Peste des petits ruminants impacts on livelihoods in

several countries: Kenya, Somalia, Cote d’ Ivoire and Sierra Leone.

Francesca Latronico

Francesca is a veterinarian and public health microbiologist with interest in zoonotic

diseases and antimicrobial resistance, and experience in diagnostics and surveillance

for infectious diseases. She has a broad knowledge on laboratory methods for

detection and characterization of infectious agents and antimicrobial resistance, and

experience in molecular epidemiology for surveillance and outbreak investigations.

She holds a PhD with focus on animal pathology and health, and graduated in the advanced field

epidemiology training programme organized by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in

2016. Before joining FAO, she worked in different microbiology diagnostic and research laboratories around

the world, at the European Food Safety Authority to support risk assessment and risk communication

activities in the context of food safety for food-borne zoonoses, and at the WHO country office in

Cambodia to improve field activities such as sample collection and transportation.

Francesca is currently working as international consultant to support the laboratory and surveillance

capacity building activities to combat antimicrobial resistance using One Health approach at FAO

Headquarters in Rome. She is also a trainer and an assessor of the FAO Assessment Tool for Laboratories

and AMR Surveillance Systems (FAO-ATLASS) supporting for the implementation in the field.

Jeff LeJeune

Jeff LeJeune serves as Food Safety Officer and Secretariat for the FAO/ WHO Joint

Expert Meeting on Microbiological Risk Assessment (JEMRA) at the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO). His past research focused on understanding

the epidemiology, ecology, survival, dissemination, and prevention of

foodborne pathogens, including antimicrobial resistant organisms. His veterinary

training was completed in Canada (UPEI), at the University of Prince Edward Island and

his PhD at Washington State University. Early in his career, he worked several years as a

veterinarian for Agriculture-Agrifood Canada in meat slaughter and processing facilities. Before moving to

FAO he was a professor of Food Safety for almost two decades in the United States.

Jorge Pinto Ferreira Jorge Pinto Ferreira is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, originally from Portugal, with

five years of clinical experience; a Master in Food Safety; a PhD (as Fulbright scholar) in

Population Medicine (with a graduate certificate in public policy). Doctoral studies

were conducted in a partnership between the College of Veterinary Medicine of North

Carolina State University (USA) and the medical school of Duke University (USA) and were dedicated to the

epidemiological aspects of the transmission of Methicilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In 2017

he also got a diploma from the European College of Veterinary Public Health. Between 2012-

2017 he worked as a consultant in Switzerland, (SAFOSO AG). Joined the World Organisation for Animal

Health (OIE) in October 2017, being currently the Deputy Head of the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and

Veterinary Products Department.