Agnes Gebhard is the director of KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation’s TB Elimination and Health Systems Innovations division. Agnes is a medical doctor and has a postgraduate specialization in public health and over 30 years of experience in tropical medicine, public health and infectious disease prevention and control.

Agnes was previously the country director for KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation in Indonesia and the USAID funded Indonesian Challenge TB Project and has extensive experience developing, implementing, and evaluating public health policies and disease-specific strategic plans and programs. Agnes also has hands on experience assisting in the development of country-specific evidence based national strategic plans for the elimination of TB, implementation and scale-up of interventions for programmatic management of drug resistant TB, TB/HIV, TB in children and adolescents, technical assistance and capacity building, optimization of diagnostic algorithms and shorter and new drugs containing LTBI and (DR) TB treatment regimens.

Agnes currently serves on WHO advisory committees on drug resistant TB and TB infection.

As the Technical Director of KNCV, Agnes’ focus is on delivery of quality services and technical assistance to countries, projects and partners, generation of (new) knowledge and evidence, design and implementation of demonstration projects, and contributing to local and global policy development in support of the global TB elimination effort. Agnes also directly supports the introduction of 3HP (IMPAACT4TB projects), and the introduction of BPaL with TB REACH and the TB Alliance (LIFT-TB).

Recent publications

1. Jerene D, Muleta C, Dressie S, Ahmed A, Tarekegn G, Haile T, Bedru A, Mustapha G, Gebhard A, Wares F. The yield of chest X-ray based versus symptom-based screening among patients with diabetes mellitus in public health facilities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. J Clin Tuberc Other Mycobact Dis. 2022 Oct 5;29:100333. doi: 10.1016/j.jctube.2022.100333. eCollection 2022 Dec. PMID: 36238947 Free PMC article.
2. Jerene D, Muleta C, Ahmed A, Tarekegn G, Haile T, Bedru A, Gebhard A, Wares F. High rates of undiagnosed diabetes mellitus among patients with active tuberculosis in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. J Clin Tuberc Other Mycobact Dis. 2022 Feb 23;27:100306. doi: 10.1016/j.jctube.2022.100306. eCollection 2022 May. PMID: 35284658 Free PMC article.
3. Mulder C, Rupert S, Setiawan E, Mambetova E, Edo P, Sugiharto J, Useni S, Malhotra S, Cook-Scalise S, Pambudi I, Kadyrov A, Lawanson A, van den Hof S, Gebhard A, Juneja S, Sohn H. Budgetary impact of using BPaL for treating extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. BMJ Glob Health. 2022 Jan;7(1):e007182. doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-007182. PMID: 34992077 Free PMC article.
4. van de Berg SEJ, Pelzer PT, van der Land AJ, Abdrakhmanova E, Ozi AM, Arias M, Cook-Scalise S, Dravniece G, Gebhard A, Juneja S, Handayani R, Kappel D, Kimerling M, Koppelaar I, Malhotra S, Myrzaliev B, Nsa B, Sugiharto J, Engel N, Mulder C, van den Hof S. Acceptability, feasibility, and likelihood of stakeholders implementing the novel BPaL regimen to treat extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis patients. BMC Public Health. 2021 Jul 16;21(1):1404. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-11427-y. PMID: 34271884 Free PMC article.
5. Edwards CG, Wares DF, Dravniece G, Gebhard A, Tiemersma E, van der Grinten E, Gidado M, van Weezenbeek K. Introducing bedaquiline: experiences from the Challenge TB Project. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2020 Oct 1;24(10):1046-1053. doi: 10.5588/ijtld.19.0790. PMID: 33126937

 

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