Abdullah S. Ali, MPH, is the Director of the Zanzibar Malaria Control Program (ZMCP), within the Ministry of Health of Zanzibar, Tanzania. He has 27 years experience working in health and malaria in particular as a clinician, health practitioner and public servant. He has a Masters Degree in Public Health from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom plus his professional qualification. In his role as ZAMEP Director for the last 15 years he has overseen program management, coordination, strategic direction and policy formulation, as well as monitoring and evaluation. Under his direction and with financial and technical support from multilateral donors and stakeholders, the ZMCP launched a multi-faceted campaign that combined multiple prevention and treatment tools with behavioral change communication that contributed to impressive declines in malaria burden and deaths attributed to malaria for children under five, which has helped Zanzibar progress from a controlled to consolidated phase looking forward for a pre-elimination phase.

He has served as technical advisor for the World Health Organization in Kenya, Sudan and Zambia by providing strategic guidance on malaria program design and development including malaria case management treatment policies. Ali is also a principal investigator in a number of malaria indicator surveys. He has co-authored and published multiple studies documenting the impact of malaria control interventions in collaboration with the Karolinska Institute of Sweden, and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). His publication on the “Efficacy of Chloroquine in Children under Five” with uncomplicated malaria (2000) for example, provided evidence-based data to shift decision-making in favor of ACTs as a policy for treatment therapy in Zanzibar, in accordance with WHO guidelines. He provides his technical expertise as an active member of various medical associations and forums, including the Malaria Elimination Group under the chairmanship of Sir Richard G.A. Feachem, UCSF Global Health Sciences, the Southern Africa Malaria Control Program Managers’ Association and the Zanzibar Medical and Ethical Review Committee.