Dr. Anita Zaidi oversees the foundation’s efforts to advance gender equality by including gender in all of the foundation’s global work. She seeks to ensure that women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia can enjoy good health, make their own choices, earn their own money, and be leaders in their societies. The mission of the Gender Equality Division, which Anita has led since 2020, is a world in which everyone, everywhere, can thrive.
Anita joined the foundation in 2014 to a lead team focused on significantly reducing the adverse consequences of diarrheal and enteric infections on children’s health in low and middle-income countries. She was then tapped to lead a second team which focused on vaccine development for people in the poorest parts of the world and disease surveillance to identify and address causes of death in children in the most underserved areas. She served as director of the foundation’s Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases team and Vaccine Development and Surveillance team until November 2022. In those roles, Anita led strategies resulting in the development and deployment of many lifesaving and disease-preventing vaccines, including rotavirus vaccines, typhoid conjugate vaccines, cholera vaccines, and novel oral polio vaccines. She also championed innovative work on behalf of low-income women and children, including the creation of the foundation’s first upstream innovations strategy to reduce maternal and newborn mortality.
Previously, Anita was the department chair of Pediatrics and Child Health at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan. She obtained her medical degree specializing in pediatric infectious diseases at Aga Khan University, and completed further training at Duke University, Boston’s Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard School of Public Health.
In 2013, Anita became the first recipient of the $1 million Caplow Children’s Prize for her pioneering work in bringing health services and wraparound care to mothers and children in low-income communities in Karachi. In 2021, she was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine.
