Kiran Jobanputra: Humanitarian in the field

Biography

Kiran Jobanputra, 42, is deputy medical director of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Amsterdam centre and head of its Manson Unit in London. He read medicine at Edinburgh University and took a masters degree at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. As a trainee GP he volunteered to work in a community hospital in India and then worked for MSF in Somalia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Swaziland, Haiti, and North Korea. The Manson Unit, which takes its name from Patrick Manson (“the father of modern tropical medicine”), provides medical advisory and implementation support to MSF’s field programmes. Current projects include developing shorter treatment regimens for drug resistant tuberculosis and using geographic information systems to strengthen responses to outbreaks. As deputy medical director, Jobanputra provides strategic and technical guidance for medical activities in 21 countries, as well as overseeing research.