Dr. Hanan Balkhy
Dr. Hanan Balkhy is a graduate of King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She completed her pediatric residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston USA 1993-1996; followed by a pediatric infectious diseases fellowship training from 1996-1999 from a joint program of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Balkhy is American Board certified in both Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Disease.
Dr. Balkhy is currently the Executive Director, Infection Prevention and Control at the Ministry of National Guard, a corporate department that over sees the infection control functions of five hospitals under the umbrella of the Saudi Ministry of National Guard. She is also the Director of the GCC Center for Infection Control (2005-current) and the WHO CC (2009-current). The impact of these centers has been to enhance and unify practices in the healthcare settings to the best possible standard to ensure patient safety.
Dr. Balkhy is also an Associate Professor of King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Science. Teaching and mentoring both medical and nursing students as well as supervising local and international postgraduate students. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Infection and Public Health and has over 90 publications in peer reviewed journals. She has also been involved in the organization of many educational symposia and seminars in the field of infection control over the past 16 years, nationally and internationally, including ESCMID, ICPIC, ID Week and others. Dr. Balkhy is also on several WHO committees including the AGISAR, STAG-AMR, and the IHR RC. Finally she has recently been appointed the Chairman of the Infectious Disease Unit at King Abdullah International Medical Research Center at KAMC which focusses on relevant infectious disease research for emerging public health concerns such as multidrug resistance pathogens, hospital infections, tuberculosis and others and has received a research award from her institution acknowledging her leading role in her field. Dr. Balkhy has served on the External Affairs Committee for SHEA and has been recently elected on the board of trustees for SHEA as the international councilor.