2026 - Health Protection Conference

Dr Éamonn O’Moore

Director of National Health Protection, HSE

Dr Eamonn O'Moore is Director of National Health Protection. A UCD graduate (1991), he has worked extensively in the UK and internationally with WHO and ECDC in health protection. He trained in Public Health in Oxford and at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. His UK roles have included Director of Thames Valley Health Protection Unit, National Lead for Health & Justice (PHE), and Deputy Director for Vulnerable People (UKHSA). During COVID-19, he was SRO for the PHE public health response in adult social care and secure settings. He was National Incident Director for the UK response to the 2014/15 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Dr O'Moore has a strong focus on health equity, prison health, and infectious diseases such as TB, blood-borne viruses and migrant health. He has advised national and international governments, published widely in peer-reviewed journals, contributed to international guidelines with ECDC and WHO, and is editor and senior contributor to the Oxford University Press textbook on Prison Medicine and Health.

Dr Pamela Rendi-Wagner

Director, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)

Dr Pamela Rendi-Wagner took up her post as ECDC Director on 17 June 2024. She is a medical doctor, former researcher, and health politician. In 2011, she was appointed Director General for Public Health and Chief Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health in Austria. One of the key issues during her time at the Ministry was to optimise preparedness and outbreak response by implementing a fully digitalised national infectious disease reporting system. In 2017, she was appointed Minister of Health and Women's Affairs, and was the first woman to chair the Austrian Social Democratic Party from 2018 to 2023. Dr Rendi-Wagner is a former member of the ECDC Management Board and of the Standing Committee, a subcommittee of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe.

Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu

Executive Director, WHO Health Emergencies Programme

Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu is Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, where he leads the Organization's global preparedness for and response to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks and humanitarian crises, across WHO's three levels. He previously served as Acting WHO Regional Director for Africa and Assistant Director-General for the Division of Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems, including the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin. A trained infectious disease epidemiologist, Dr Ihekweazu has held leadership roles in public health agencies across Africa and Europe. Most notably, he served as the founding Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) from 2016 to 2021, where he played a central role in strengthening Nigeria's public health infrastructure. He also held leadership roles at the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases, the UK Health Protection Agency, and Germany's Robert Koch Institute. Dr Ihekweazu holds a medical degree from the University of Nigeria and a Master of Public Health from Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. He is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health and an alumnus of the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and received an Honorary Doctor of Science from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Dr Helen O’Brien

Consultant in Public Health Medicine, HSE National Health Protection Office

Dr. Helen O'Brien works as a Consultant in Public Health Medicine with responsibility for Health Security within the National Health Protection Office. Dr. O'Brien is a graduate of University College Cork School of Medicine. She completed her specialty training in Melbourne and is a Fellow of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine. She joined the NHPO in September 2025.

Dr Colm Henry

Chief Clinical Officer, HSE

Dr. Colm Henry was appointed as the first Chief Clinical Officer (CCO) to the HSE in April 2018. He was previously the National Clinical Advisor and Group Lead for Acute Hospitals from 2014 to 2018, and National Lead for the Clinical Director Programme from 2012 to 2014. Prior to these national roles, he was Clinical Director of the Mercy University Hospital Cork from 2009 to 2012 where he worked as Consultant Geriatrician since his appointment in 2002.

Prof Sir Michael McBride

Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, Northern Ireland

Prof Sir Michael McBride graduated with Distinction from Queen's University Belfast in 1986. In 1991 he attained a Research Fellowship at St Mary's Medical School and Imperial College London, where he carried out research into new drug treatments for HIV. He was appointed Physician in HIV medicine at the Royal Group of Hospitals in 1994 and took up the post of Medical Director in August 2002. He has a longstanding interest in continuing medical education and was Postgraduate Clinical Tutor between 1996 and 2000 and Director of Education from 2000 in the Royal Group of Hospitals. He was appointed to the post of Chief Medical Officer for the Department of Health, in September 2006. Prof Sir Michael was knighted in Her Majesty's 2021 Birthday Honours for services to public health in Northern Ireland. He was awarded a Professorship in Public Health Practice from Queens University Belfast in 2021 for services to Public Health.

Professor Mary Horgan

Interim Chief Medical Officer and Professor of Infectious Diseases, UCD

Professor Mary Horgan is interim Chief Medical Officer and Professor of Infectious Diseases at UCD and Mater Misericordiae University Hospital. She is the immediate past President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and is the first woman to hold this position since the College's foundation in 1654. She is the former Dean of the School of Medicine at UCC and was the first woman to be appointed to this position. She is a graduate of UCD School of Medicine in 1986 and was awarded the UCD Alumni award for health in 2019. She is a Director of Education of the European Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (ESCMID). She also served on the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) and led the expert advisory group on rapid testing and chaired Ireland's first National Research Ethics Committee.

Professor Mary Codd

Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, UCD

Mary Codd is a graduate of University College Dublin. Following internal medicine in Dublin and London, she pursued Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Mayo Clinic and School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, USA (MPH; PhD). She is Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine in Ireland and Honorary Fellow of UK Faculty of Public Health. Mary is Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at UCD. As Director of the UCD MPH programme and Erasmus Mundus Europubhealth programme, she has an outstanding track record in teaching for which she has received Teaching Excellence Awards from UCD, Universitas 21 and ASPHER. Mary has held pivotal roles as: Coordinator of the ECCLES Breast Screening programme, establishing the first population-based register for screening, setting precedent for BreastCheck and co-authoring European Guidelines on Quality Assurance in Mammography Screening; as Director of the UCD CSTAR (Centre for Support and Training in Analysis and Research); and as Director of the UCD Specialised COVID-19 Contact Tracing Centre in conjunction with HSE. Her research in neuroepidemiology, cardiovascular epidemiology, screening, infectious diseases and curriculum development has resulted in >400 scientific publications, ~10,000 citations and h-index 48. Mary is President of the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER). As a member of the ASPHER Executive Board she led the ECDC Core Competencies in Applied Infectious Diseases Epidemiology (2022) and is Lead of the ASPHER Core Curriculum Programme for Public Health (2024).

Prof David Weakliam

Consultant in Public Health Medicine and Director of the Global Health Programme, HSE

David Weakliam is a Consultant in Public Health Medicine and Director of the Global Health Programme in the Health Service Executive (HSE). He has worked in global health for nearly forty years, including twelve years spent in low-income countries in Africa and Asia. He was Health Adviser with the Irish Aid programme from 2003 to 2007 before moving to the HSE where he established the Global Health Programme in 2010. Currently he leads a team implementing HSE partnerships for health service strengthening with Ministries of Health in Mozambique, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Sudan and Zambia. He also oversees HSE humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and Sudan. He additionally supports and facilitates health professionals and health services across Ireland to engage in health partnerships with low- and middle-income countries. David is an Adjunct Professor at University College Dublin.