Hentsa Haddush Desta is a ‘National Coordinator’ at Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Eastern Africa Regional Coordinating Center, leading and coordinating the Saving Lives and Livelihoods Program and supporting other regional high priority initiatives.
Prior to this, Hentsa was an epidemiologist/rapid responder working for Africa CDC based in Ethiopia to support the COVID-19 pandemic preparedness and response between May 2020 to September 2022. As an epidemiologist and rapid responder, Hentsa supported contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and humanitarian emergency response exacerbated by the conflict during the Ethiopia’s Tigray war. He worked as senior public health specialist and team lead for the ministry of health Ethiopia. Hentsa worked as a health systems expert for WHO Liberia CO, to support the post Ebola health service recovery plan implementation in Liberia. He worked as a country team lead for the African Union/ASEOWA to support the Ebola outbreak response in West Africa from December 2014 to September 2015. Hentsa also worked in various positions for the MOH-Ethiopia.
Hentsa trained as a public health epidemiologist and has over 15 years’ experience working in clinical, public health, senior public health, and leadership positions in ministry of health, African Union/ASEOWA, Africa CDC and Afar regional health bureau.
Hentsa is a graduate of the College of Health Science, Jimma University of Ethiopia and has a master’s in public health (MPH) from Mekelle University, Ethiopia. In 2017, he was awarded a fellowship on the International Program in Public Health Leadership/IPPHL. Hentsa is an IPPHL and ACEA fellow and awarded the ‘Africa Health Heroes’ by the African Union commission and Liberian president for the extraordinary contributions to fight Ebola in West Africa 2014/2015.
