The Irish doctor who is leading the World Health Organization's response to the Covid-19 pandemic is to be honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Irish Red Cross.
Dr Michael Ryan, a native of Sligo and Mayo, came to global prominence this year in his role as Executive Director of the World Health Organisation's Health Emergencies Programme, leading the team responsible for the international readiness and response to Covid-19.
Dr Ryan trained as a young doctor in NUI Galway, before turning his attention towards public health and infectious diseases in the 1990s after an injury sustained in a road traffic accident prohibited him from pursuing his training as a surgeon.
He joined the WHO in 1996 in a unit that focused on emerging diseases and epidemics.
During this time he was deployed to a number of countries where he led responses to epidemics, before developing the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which he became director of in 2005.
Dr Ryan joined the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 2013 as a Senior Adviser, a role he held until 2017.
He was also deployed to west Africa in this period as Senior Advisor to the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response in West Africa.
In 2017, Dr Ryan was appointed as Deputy Director-General to the WHO Health Emergencies Programme and in 2019 as its Executive Director.
It was in this role that he came to public attention throughout the ongoing pandemic.
Pat Carey, the chair of the Irish Red Cross, said that Dr Ryan has been "at the forefront of managing risks to global health for almost 25 years now and his career helping the world's most vulnerable people is an inspiration to us all".
The award is being presented as part of the Irish Red Cross Humanitarian Awards.
The winners of the other awards will be announced in a live virtual ceremony on 15 December at 7pm.
