Abha Saxena


Abha Saxena is the Coordinator of the Global Health Ethics Unit of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. In that role, she chairs the Research Ethics Review Committee and leads the Department of Ethics and Social Determinants of WHO. She is married to WHO-based psychiatrist Shekhar Saxena. Much of her work involves advising low and middle income countries about the ethics of resource allocation in addressing vector-borne diseases, aging, and other current medical and public health issues.

Education

Saxena was educated and trained in India as an anaesthesiologist. For twenty years she practiced medicine actively in hospital and community-based research in India. She also was a faculty member and Professor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, which was founded in 1956.
In 2001, she joined the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, where her husband, Shekhar Saxena, is also employed as the Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. Since 2002, Saxena has been managing the WHO Research Ethics Review Committee. At WHO, she conducts short training programs in research ethics not only for WHO staff, but also in several African and Asian countries, using many of the case studies that were included in the Casebook on Ethical Issues in International Health Research, which has been translated into at least five languages. She is now Director and Coordinator of WHO's Global Health Ethics Unit.

Personal life

Saxena is married to Shekhar Saxena, also of the World Health Organization, and together they live in Geneva, Switzerland. They have two adult daughters.

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