On September 30th, Drugs & Diagnostics for Tropical Diseases (DDTD) will host our 5th Annual Health For All Humanity night in support of treatments and diagnostics for diseases that primarily affect impoverished populations. The event will take place at the San Diego Central Library in the Shiley Special Events Suite starting with a networking happy hour including refreshments, hors d’oeuvres, and a silent auction at 6pm, followed by the program. Our emcee for the evening will be veteran Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist, Phil Blauer.

Phil is an evening anchor on Fox 5 San Diego. Before joining FOX 5 News as an anchor/reporter, Phil spent time across town at KFMB, in Los Angeles at KCBS, KCAL and KCOP and in Palm Springs at KESQ. He has also appeared on Crime Watch Daily, Investigation Discovery, CNN and 48 Hours. He has covered major national and international stories and has interviewed six U.S. Presidents. Phil has received numerous Emmys, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting and San Diego Press Club honors.

We are excited to announce this year’s keynote speaker is Dr. Khashef Ijaz, Vice President of Health Programs at The Carter Center. In his role at The Carter Center, Dr. Ijaz provides leadership for programs and initiatives working to control, prevent, eliminate, or eradicate six tropical diseases in 18 nations, as well as efforts to improve mental health care in the United States and abroad.

Previously, Dr. Ijaz was the principal deputy director in the Division of Global Health Protection, at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where he helped build disease detection and response capacity for global health security. At CDC, he also served as deputy director for science and programs in the Center for Global Health and chief of the Tuberculosis Field Services and Evaluation Branch. He helped lead the CDC’s responses to the West Africa Ebola epidemic of 2014-16, the MERS-CoV outbreak of 2013-14, and the H1N1 pandemic of 2009.

Dr. Ijaz is a physician trained in public health from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, has expertise in infectious diseases and global health. He holds certificates in public health leadership from the University of Alabama and in national preparedness and response leadership from the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. He is Professor of Epidemiology & Global Health at Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. He speaks five languages and has more than 100 articles and presentations published in peer-reviewed journals and at conferences.

As DDTD focuses on developing ultra-low-cost treatments and diagnostics for diseases that affect impoverished populations, proceeds from this year’s event will support seeding new projects for diseases that affect low income populations where testing has not yet been developed.