Michael J. Ryan (doctor) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Michael Ryan
Ryan speaking at ESCAIDE 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden
Deputy Director General of World Health Organization
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 April 2024
Director-General	Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Personal details
Born	Michael Joseph Ryan 1965 (age 59–60) Sligo, Ireland
Education	NUI Galway University College Dublin Health Protection Agency
Occupation	Doctor and Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme (WHO)

Michael Joseph Ryan, born in 1965, is an Irish doctor. He is an expert in how diseases spread and how to keep people healthy. He works for the World Health Organization (WHO). He leads a special team that helps stop diseases like COVID-19 from spreading around the world.

Dr. Ryan has led many teams that fight disease outbreaks. He has helped stop the spread of serious illnesses like Ebola, cholera, measles, and SARS.

Early Life and Education

Mike Ryan grew up in a town called Charlestown in County Mayo, Ireland. His father worked as a sailor.

Dr. Ryan studied medicine at the National University of Ireland in Galway. He also trained in bone surgery in Scotland. He earned a special degree in Public Health in 1992 from University College Dublin. Later, he became an expert in controlling diseases and public health at the Health Protection Agency in London.

Career Highlights

Starting His Career

In 1990, Dr. Ryan moved to Iraq with his girlfriend, who later became his wife. They went there to train doctors. Soon after they arrived, a war started. They were forced to work as doctors while held captive. Dr. Ryan was badly injured in a car accident, which meant he could no longer work as a surgeon. This led him to focus on public health and infectious diseases.

He also worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This foundation helps to get rid of infectious diseases in Africa.

Working at the WHO

In 1996, Dr. Ryan joined the World Health Organization (WHO). He worked in a new team that focused on epidemics, which are large outbreaks of disease. He helped create rules for how to respond to measles outbreaks. He also worked on a program to get rid of polio.

From 2000 to 2003, Dr. Ryan was in charge of responding to epidemics at the WHO. In 2001, he was in Uganda leading a team to stop an Ebola outbreak. He worked in dangerous areas, like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where aid workers were sometimes attacked. In 2003, he also helped manage the SARS outbreak.

From 2005 to 2011, Dr. Ryan was the Director of Global Alert and Response Operations for the WHO. He helped create systems for the WHO to manage health emergencies. He also worked on rules for how countries should respond to infectious diseases.

In 2011, Dr. Ryan left the WHO for a while. He went back to Ireland and then worked on the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). He worked in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Middle East until 2017.

He returned to the WHO in 2017. Dr. Ryan was a key person in fighting most of the Ebola outbreaks in Africa. From 2014 to 2015, he advised the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response in West Africa. He worked directly in countries like Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

From 2013 to 2017, he worked in the Middle East. His goal was to help get rid of polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He helped coordinate efforts to stop polio outbreaks in places like Syria and Iraq.

From 2017 to 2019, Dr. Ryan was an Assistant Director-General at the WHO. He worked on preparing for and responding to health emergencies. In 2019, he helped create a report on how ready the world was for future pandemics.

In 2019, Dr. Ryan became the Executive Director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme. He often spoke at press conferences during the COVID-19 pandemic. He explained how to fight the virus and find a vaccine. Based on his experience with Ebola, he said that while lockdowns help, stopping a virus completely needs strong public health actions. These include finding sick people, tracing their contacts, isolating them, and quarantining others.

Since 2022, Dr. Ryan has been leading a group for the World Bank and WHO. This group manages a fund to prepare for future pandemics.

Dr. Ryan has also taught at University College Dublin. He has given lectures on medicine and public health to students. In 2025, the WHO announced that Dr. Ryan would no longer be part of the executive leadership team. This was due to funding issues and a desire for more balance among leaders.

Other Activities

• Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a group that helps develop vaccines.
• Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), a network of experts who respond to outbreaks.

Recognition

On January 5, 2022, Dr. Ryan received an award from the Irish President Michael D. Higgins. He was honored for his "enormous service to global public health" over many years.

Personal Life

In 1988, Dr. Ryan met his wife, Máire Connolly, in medical school. They married in 1997. Máire is also a doctor and an expert in infectious diseases. She has also worked at the World Health Organization. She is now a professor at National University of Ireland Galway. They have three children.

Dr. Ryan lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

Selected Works and Publications

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See also

• Tedros Adhanom
• Bruce Aylward
• Maria Van Kerkhove
• Ibrahima Socé Fall – Assistant Director-General for Emergency Response at the World Health Organization (WHO)