FAO SUSTAINABLE LIVESTOCK TECHNICAL NETWORK, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION AND CODEX ALIMENTARIUS
WEBINAR ON
FAO AND WHO ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT MONITORING AND SURVEILLANCE OF ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE IN THE FOOD
AND AGRICULTURE SECTORS MODERATORS’, SPEAKERS’ and PANELLISTS’ BIOs
Jorge Matheu Alvarez
Jorge Matheu, MSc, is Team Lead, Department of Global Coordination and Partnership
for Antimicrobial Resistance (GCP), World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva,
Switzerland. He is a chemistry biologist from the University of San Carlos in Guatemala
with a MSc in Public Health from the Rafael Landivar University. From 2000 to 2009, he
was Head of the Bacteriology Department in the National Laboratory of Health of the
Ministry of Health, Guatemala and National Coordinator of the National Surveillance
System on AMR, as well as Laboratory Coordinator of the Food-borne Diseases Surveillance and Laboratory
Coordinator of Pneumonia and Meningitis Surveillance. From 2010 - 2015 he was with the Pan American
Health Organization, as specialist on antimicrobial resistance surveillance supporting the Latin American
Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network. From 2015 to 2019, he coordinated the capacity building
activities on Integrated Surveillance of AMR in the Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses in WHO. In
2020 he worked as Team Lead for Laboratory Strengthening and Integrated Surveillance of AMR in the
Department of Surveillance, Prevention and Control of AMR in WHO. Since January 2021, he is Team Lead
in the Impact Initiatives and Research Coordination Unit in the department of GCP, AMR Division at WHO.
He represents WHO in the Codex Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance.
Daniela Battaglia Daniela Battaglia is Livestock Production Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations (FAO), coordinator of the FAO Sustainable Livestock Technical
Network and member of the FAO Working Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, where she
is she focal point for animal production and animal feed. Daniela holds an M.Sc. in
Agricultural Science and another in Tropical Animal Health and Production from the
University of Edinburgh, UK. Before joining FAO in 2001, Daniela has worked for nine years
for the European Commission and has been based in several countries, including Belgium, UK, Peru,
Suriname, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Israel and Tunisia.
Gracia Brisco
Focal point for Codex Alimentarius food safety normative work on food of animal origin
including feed and its impact on food safety. Some key lines of work she leads in Codex
which are relevant to this webinar are foodborne AMR, contaminants and residues of
veterinary drugs and pesticides and contaminants in food and feed.
She is currently deployed to the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva, Switzerland to
strengthen cooperation between the Codex Alimentarius Commission and international
organizations based in Geneva, in particular the World Trade Organization and the World Health
Organization, and to provide support to the Liaison Office on regulatory and trade issues related
to food safety.
Sarah Cahill
Currently a Senior Food Standard Officers with the Codex Alimentarius, she leads
the activities related to regional Codex coordinating committees, monitoring and
implementation of the Codex Strategic plan 2020-25, awareness raising of Codex
standards and improving engagement in standard development and uptake as well as
supporting technical areas of work such as antimicrobial resistance. Until April 2018
she led the FAO JEMRA Secretariat, responsible for overseeing the provision of scientific
advice on microbiological hazards in a wide range of foods, from fresh produce to meat and fish. She was
an active participant in the Codex standard setting processes, facilitating the consideration of scientific
advice in international standard setting. In addition, she has worked on the provision of scientific advice to
other UN agencies (WFP, UNICEF) on the safety of specific foods destined for food insecure and vulnerable
populations. She also worked on increasing the accessibility of risk assessment and scientific advice to the
FAO and Codex Membership through the development of tools and approaches to support evidence-based
decision-making in the wider management of food safety issues as well as capacity development activities.
Sarah also served as the food safety focal point on AMR where she was involved in the development of
FAOs action plan on AMR (2016-2020) and served as the technical lead for a global capacity development
project to engage the food and agriculture sector in countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia in efforts to
address AMR. She also worked on the development of scientific advice on AMR to support the work of the
Codex Task Force on AMR.
She has a Bachelor’s degree in science and worked in the dairy and beverage sectors before going on to
receive her Ph.D. in food microbiology from University College Dublin, Ireland in 1999. She is a regular
contributor to international food safety conferences and an active member of the International Association
of Food Protection.
Alejandro Dorado Garcia Alejandro is a veterinary epidemiologist with experience in the private sector,
academia, public health, and international development. He holds a Doctor of
Veterinary Medicine degree from Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), and an
MSc and PhD in Epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance from Utrecht University (The
Netherlands). He joined FAO HQ in Rome early in 2018 where he works as an Animal
Health Officer. He coordinates and provides technical support for implementing a
number of projects related to AMR, especially in the areas of promotion of good
practices, and surveillance and monitoring of AMR / AMU. In his work, he continuously engages with
various units/departments at HQs and supports intensively the work in the regional offices in Africa, Asia
and Latin America.
Omar Elhassan
Omar Elhassan is an Environmental Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Water
Management Expert working for Land and Water Division at the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Within FAO, Omar develops projects
addressing the environmental dimensions of AMR in a cross-sectoral and One Health
context and integrated water resources management approaches that recognize the
intrinsic role of water in protecting human, animal and ecosystem health, such as
strengthening global food safety through improved water quality control systems. He is also a member of
the FAO Working Group on AMR.
Omar is a Plant and Environmental Soil Scientist from Texas A&M University and previously worked as a
consultant for FAO Aquaculture Biosecurity. He presented at various workshops in India, Malaysia and a
U.S. Congressional Briefing towards improving prudent use of antimicrobials and understanding of AMR.
Before joining FAO, he worked with small non-profit organizations in forging and maintaining partnerships
and towards providing access to clean water to underrepresented rural communities in Guatemala,
Nicaragua and El Salvador through the dissemination of knowledge, skills, and tools necessary for self-
sufficiency.
Mary Joy Gordoncillo
Mary Joy Gordoncillo is the Antimicrobial Regional Project Coordinator at the
Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Disease Operations (ECTAD) of the Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. Part of her
work has been on developing tools, strategies, and innovative solutions to mitigate
antimicrobial resistance in the food and agriculture sector in Asia. Prior to joining FAO,
she served as the Science and One Health Coordinator of the World Organisation for
Animal Health (OIE) Sub-Regional Representation for South-East Asia, and as assistant
professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of the Philippines. She holds a Doctor of
Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of the Philippines, Masters of Tropical Veterinary Science
from James Cook University in Australia, and a PhD from Michigan State University USA where she
specialized in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in livestock animals.
Tabitha Kimani Tabitha Kimani works as socio-economist and veterinary at the FAO Emergency Centre
for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD); she is also Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
Coordinator for Eastern Africa at FAO Office in Kenya. Tabitha holds a PhD in
Agricultural Economics and a Bachelor degree in Veterinary Medicine, both obtained in
Kenya. She is an animal health socio-economist currently coordinating and providing
technical support to several FAO programmes namely on AMR, Global Health Security and Emerging
pandemics threats and Transboundary animal diseases (TADs). More specifically, she also supports animal
health economics, value chains analysis and policy formulation and analysis related activities, implemented
through the Global Health Security and Emerging pandemics threats programme. With respect to AMR,
Tabitha Kimani has strong interests in the intersection of animal health problems and livelihoods as well as
finding ways to overcome barriers to promote the adoption of good animal health practices by value chain
actors. She has undertaken socio-economic analysis of Peste des petits ruminants impacts on livelihoods in
several countries: Kenya, Somalia, Cote d’ Ivoire and Sierra Leone.
Francesca Latronico
Francesca is a veterinarian and public health microbiologist with interest in zoonotic
diseases and antimicrobial resistance, and experience in diagnostics and surveillance
for infectious diseases. She has a broad knowledge on laboratory methods for
detection and characterization of infectious agents and antimicrobial resistance, and
experience in molecular epidemiology for surveillance and outbreak investigations.
She holds a PhD with focus on animal pathology and health, and graduated in the advanced field
epidemiology training programme organized by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in
2016. Before joining FAO, she worked in different microbiology diagnostic and research laboratories around
the world, at the European Food Safety Authority to support risk assessment and risk communication
activities in the context of food safety for food-borne zoonoses, and at the WHO country office in
Cambodia to improve field activities such as sample collection and transportation.
Francesca is currently working as international consultant to support the laboratory and surveillance
capacity building activities to combat antimicrobial resistance using One Health approach at FAO
Headquarters in Rome. She is also a trainer and an assessor of the FAO Assessment Tool for Laboratories
and AMR Surveillance Systems (FAO-ATLASS) supporting for the implementation in the field.
Jeff LeJeune
Jeff LeJeune serves as Food Safety Officer and Secretariat for the FAO/ WHO Joint
Expert Meeting on Microbiological Risk Assessment (JEMRA) at the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO). His past research focused on understanding
the epidemiology, ecology, survival, dissemination, and prevention of
foodborne pathogens, including antimicrobial resistant organisms. His veterinary
training was completed in Canada (UPEI), at the University of Prince Edward Island and
his PhD at Washington State University. Early in his career, he worked several years as a
veterinarian for Agriculture-Agrifood Canada in meat slaughter and processing facilities. Before moving to
FAO he was a professor of Food Safety for almost two decades in the United States.
Jorge Pinto Ferreira Jorge Pinto Ferreira is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, originally from Portugal, with
five years of clinical experience; a Master in Food Safety; a PhD (as Fulbright scholar) in
Population Medicine (with a graduate certificate in public policy). Doctoral studies
were conducted in a partnership between the College of Veterinary Medicine of North
Carolina State University (USA) and the medical school of Duke University (USA) and were dedicated to the
epidemiological aspects of the transmission of Methicilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In 2017
he also got a diploma from the European College of Veterinary Public Health. Between 2012-
2017 he worked as a consultant in Switzerland, (SAFOSO AG). Joined the World Organisation for Animal
Health (OIE) in October 2017, being currently the Deputy Head of the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and
Veterinary Products Department.