Professor Fred Binka became
an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health,
University of Ghana in 2001. He is currently the Executive Director of the INDEPTH
Network (A Health and Population NGO). Professor Binka has held the
following positions in the past: Public Health Specialist, Ministry of Health
on secondment to the School of Public Health, University of Ghana; Medical
Officer, Roll Back Malaria, World Health Organisation, Geneva; Director,
Navrongo Health Research Centre. Ministry of Health, Navrongo; Epidemiologist
and Head of Fieldwork, Ghana Vitamin A Supplementation Trials; General Duty
Medical Officer, Liberty Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Nigeria; and General Duty
Medical Officer, Ministry of Health, Ho, Ghana.
From 1996-1998, Professor Binka was a member of
the National Malaria Advisory Committee that was set up to advise the Minister
of Health on all matters related to Malaria control in Ghana. From 1994-1999,
he was Honorary Research Fellow in epidemiology and population sciences at the
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
He has served in various key committees of the
World Health Organisation (WHO) including the following: Member, WHO Tropical
Disease Research Task force on the Integrated Management of the Sick Child,
Malaria; Member, WHO Tropical Disease Research Task force on Research
Capability Strengthening; Chairperson, WHO Tropical Disease Research Task
force on Malaria and Health Sector Reform; Chairperson, Multilateral
Initiative of Malaria and WHO/TDR Task Force on capacity strengthening in
Africa; and Member WHO/TDR, Steering Committee on Proof of Principle (PoP) and
Steering Committee on Implementation Research (IR).
Professor Binka has also served in several committees of other international
NGOs. To name a few examples: Member, International Advisory Committee, PATH
CANADA; Member, Board of Directors, African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF)
Nairobi, Kenya; and Member, Research & Development Task Force, Global
Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI). He is a founding member of the
international network “Mapping Malaria Risk in Africa (MARA)”, which is
composed of malaria scientists working to create a continental malaria risk
map for Africa. Secretariat based in MRC-Durban, South Africa.
Professor Binka was the first recipient of Rudolf Geigy Award 2001 for
excellence in science and for dedication and outstanding contributions to
malaria control and health development in Africa. It was awarded by the R.
Geigy Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. Fred Binka received his medical
degree, an MB. ChB with a credit in community health from the University of
Ghana, Legon, Ghana in 1978 and an MPH with distinction from The Hebrew
University, Jarusalem, Israel in 1988. In 1997 he received his PhD in
epidemiology with a summa cum laude from the University of Basel in
Switzerland. Fred Newton Binka was born in 1953 in Ghana. He is married with
children.