Acting Division Director: CAPT Simon Agolory, MD

CAPT Simon Agolory, MD is the Acting Director of the Division of Global Health Protection at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In this role, CAPT Agolory leads a team of CDC experts based in the U.S. and around the world focused on building critical health security systems, protecting Americans and people across the globe from outbreaks and other public health threats.

CAPT Agolory began his career at CDC as an EIS Officer in 2009 in the Division of Global HIV and TB where he supported program implementation and implementation science activities in different countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Swaziland, South Sudan, Papua New Guinea, Uganda, Zambia, and the Central Asia Region. He is a Medical Epidemiologist and public health expert with over a decade and a half experience in infectious diseases and public health program development, implementation, evaluation and monitoring, and program management in low resource settings. In 2014, he joined CDC Namibia as the Country Director and he played a key role in the development and implementation of the Namibia Acceleration Plan which resulted in rapid scale up of HIV treatment services allowing Namibia to achieve the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets for HIV epidemic control. He was also instrumental in the development of Namibia National Public Health Institute.

CAPT Agolory joined CDC Zambia in 2018 and has focused on building capacity of provincial health offices to directly implement HIV programs and to improve broader services at health facilities. He introduced the clinical mentorship program and the use of innovative strategies like Project ECHO to build capacity of healthcare workers. These and other efforts have resulted in rapid scale up of HIV diagnosis and treatment allowing Zambia to achieve the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets for HIV epidemic control. He has also played a key role in strengthening capacity of Zambia National Public Health Institute to prepare and respond to infectious disease outbreaks, including COVID-19, with the focus on surveillance, and public health workforce development. He provided technical leadership for USG COVID-19 response in Zambia and has previously supported different outbreak responses including for polio and cholera in Zambia, anthrax and hepatitis E. in Namibia.

CAPT Agolory received his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from North Carolina State University and his medical degree from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill.  He completed his residency in internal medicine at Tulane University and a fellowship in infectious diseases at New York University. He is an adjunct faculty in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Bellevue NYU Hospital in New York City.