On April 18, 2019, Dr. Dirk Engels, former Director of the Department of Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) Control of the World Health Organization (WHO), was appointed as a visiting professor. Director Zhou Xiaonong issued a letter of appointment. Director Zhou Xiaonong, Deputy Director Xiao Ning, and Director of the Global Health Center, Guan Yayi, had a heated discussion with Professor Dirk Engels on the progress and challenges of global health cooperation. Dirk Engels suggested that China has a wealth of practical experience that is very valuable to Africa and that Chinas experience and technology in media control, zoonosis and environmental transformation can be prioritized. In addition, health economics is an indispensable and important aspect. I hope that China can pay attention to the application of the theory of health economics in the design and evaluation of health projects.

  Professor Dirk Engel holds a doctorate in medicine from the University of Antwerp, Belgium and a doctorate in parasitology from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. Before joining the World Health Organization, he worked in African countries for 17 years. In 1998, Professor Dirk Engel joined the World Health Organization and made outstanding contributions to the World Health Organizations strategy for prevention, control and elimination of tropical diseases, including the development and implementation of lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and trachoma. Within the norms and standards for large-scale integrated preventive therapeutic interventions for neglected tropical diseases (NTD); as Director of the Neglected Tropical Disease Control Division, directing global expansion control and elimination of NTD prevention and control measures. Under his leadership, the World Health Organization has implemented a new comprehensive strategy to strengthen the control of neglected tropical diseases, bringing neglected tropical diseases into the global health agenda.