When epidemiologist Chikwe Ihekweazu posted a blog in 2010 warning that his home country of Nigeria would “pay the price the hard way” if a pandemic struck, he never imagined that the government would not only ask for his advice, but also his leadership. In 2016, he was tasked with leading the nascent Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), where he would increase the agency’s staff numbers and laboratory capacity, and navigate the country through waves of infectious disease outbreaks.

These accomplishments — including his guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic — caught the attention of the World Health Organization (WHO), which announced earlier this month that Ihekweazu would lead its new Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin. Details about the hub, which will initially be funded by the German government, are scant, but the WHO has cast it as an initiative to better gather data on infectious diseases from around the world and assess them so that authorities can make rapid, informed decisions in public-health emergencies.

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