Dr. Jos Vanderlaer

Dr. Jos Vandelaer is the WHO Representative to Thailand. He has taken up office in October 2021.

Prior to his current position, between 2015 and 2021, Dr Vandelaer was the WHO Representative to Nepal and later the Regional Director for Emergencies in the World Health Organization Regional Office for South-East Asia.

He started his career in 1986 with the NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres, working in emergencies in Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Surinam, and Thailand. Later he worked in migration/refugee health for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Vietnam and Croatia/Bosnia-Hercegovina and for UNHCR in Myanmar.

In 1996, he joined the World Health Organization, where he held immunization-related positions in the Philippines, India, and Myanmar. In 2001, he joined UNICEF in Geneva, and from 2009 till 2015, he was Chief of UNICEF’s global Immunization program, based in New York, USA.

Dr. Vandelaer is a national of Belgium, and holds a Medical Doctor degree from the University of Leuven (Belgium), a diploma in Tropical Medicine from the Antwerp Institute for Tropical Medicine (Belgium), and a Masters degree in Public Health from Harvard University (USA).