From October 1997– January 1999 shortly after his graduation, Ihekweazu completed his Housemanship and served the mandatory one-year Nigerian
National Youth Service Corps Scheme. During his service year, he provided direct clinical care and public health functions at the
Abia State University Teaching Hospital Aba, Abia State, and Police College,
Ikeja Lagos. Nigeria In October 2001, Ihekweazu worked as a Medical
Epidemiologist in the
Robert Koch Institute (RKI),
Berlin, a German Federal Government Agency and Research Institute responsible for disease control and prevention. During his time at RKI he was responsible for investigating outbreaks involving hospital-associated infections, and the analysis of surveillance data. In February 2003, Ihekweazu became a Public Health Analyst at Haringey Primary Care trust,
National Health Service, England. Chikwe managed routinely collected health intelligence data and the provision of health intelligence and analysis for a period of one year from February 2003 – January 2004. Upon leaving the National Health Service in January 2004, he was competitively selected to join the European Union-funded European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) which provided him with service-based specialist training and practical experience in intervention epidemiology. He applied his skills and experience in field epidemiology across a wide range of public health challenges, mostly during outbreaks of infectious diseases. Following the completion of his fellowship program, Ihekweazu became Specialist Registrar in Public Health Medicine at the Health Protection Agency, England. During his specialist-training programme in Public Health, he led several service-based projects in Public Health organisations in England and gained knowledge and experience in the control of infectious diseases, chemical, radiological and nuclear threats as well as in health project management and leadership. Afterward, Ihekweazu became a consultant medical epidemiologist at United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency in 2008. The HPA's role was to provide an integrated approach to protecting public health in the UK by providing emergency services, support, and advice to the
National Health Service (NHS). During his time there he managed the South East of England's Regional Epidemiology Unit (REU) including a team of 13 Public Health specialists. The REU provided outbreak investigation and management, surveillance, advice, and specialist support for the control of communicable diseases, as well as leading the response to environmental hazards in the South East Region of England, a population of about 10 million people. In 2011, Ihekweazu moved to
Johannesburg,
South Africa to become the co-director of the Centre for Tuberculosis at the
National Institute for Communicable Diseases with primary responsibility for the epidemiology section. During this period, he also supported NICD to set up the first Provincial Epidemiology Service for the institute. His mandate included designing the service, recruiting the leadership provincial epidemiologists, initiating a supportive relationship in the nine provinces of South Africa, developing epidemiology capacity and surveillance for the institute. He also led the implementation of a nation-wide drug resistance survey for tuberculosis and the implementation of a new integrated surveillance system for tuberculosis in South Africa. In February 2014, Ihekweazu became a part-time senior adviser at the
National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), Johannesburg, South Africa.
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control Ihekweazu served as the founding Director General of the
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) from 2016 to 2021. During his tenure, he was credited with transforming the NCDC into a world-class institution for disease control in Nigeria and Africa. Following the signing of its Act by President
Muhammadu Buhari,
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) became an independent agency on 13 November 2018. As Director-General, Ihekweazu led the agency through a period of redevelopment. He led the response to large outbreaks of infectious diseases, as well as a re-emergence of
monkeypox and
yellow fever in the country. In addition, Ihekweazu oversaw the establishment of the National Reference Laboratory in Abuja, establishment of national and sub-national Public Health Emergency Operations Centres expansion of the agency's field epidemiology training program to build the capacity of public health professionals across the country amongst other achievements. In recognition of the work done by NCDC under Ihekweazu's leadership, the Director-General of
WHO,
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited the agency in 2018, and former Prime Minister of the UK,
Tony Blair visited in 2019. From 2020, Ihekweazu served on the WHO's IHR Emergency Committee for COVID-19, chaired by Didier Houssin. He also led Nigeria's public health response to the pandemic through NCDC. He served as a Member of the Africa Task Force for Coronavirus Steering Committee, where he chaired the Infection Prevention Control Sub-Committee, and was a Member of Nigeria's Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
World Health Organization In November 2021, Ihekweazu was appointed as Assistant Director General for the Division of Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems at WHO. He also serves as the head of the WHO Hub for Epidemic and Pandemic Intelligence (office in
Berlin, Germany), an initiative established by the WHO and supported by the German government to strengthen pandemic and epidemic intelligence through better data, better analytics, and better decisions. The WHO Pandemic Hub is responsible for several initiatives to strengthen pandemic and epidemic intelligence including the Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources Initiative (EIOS), International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN), Open Source Programme Office (OSPO) and several others. The Hub works closely with Member States, WHO Regional and Country Offices, regional and national health agencies, academia, private sector and other non-state actors across geographies and disciplines to collaborate and co-create tools to gather and analyse data to better prepare for, detect and respond to health emergencies. It is built upon the premise that no single discipline or institution will be able to make the world better prepared for the next pandemic. Therefore, the Hub works with experts from various countries and disciplines. He sits on the board of the one of Nigeria's largest NGOs - the
Society for Family Health, as well as the Health Advocacy Organisation Nigeria Health Watch. ==Honours and recognitions==