Farrar's research interests are in infectious diseases
dengue fever,
typhoid fever,
malaria, and
H5N1 influenza. In 2004, he and his Vietnamese colleague Tran Tinh Hien identified the re-emergence of the deadly bird flu, or
H5N1, in humans. He was Professor of Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the
University of Oxford from 2000 until 2013.
Wellcome Trust, 2013–2023 In 2013, Farrar was appointed Director of the Wellcome Trust. explaining the UK government's response to
Ebola in Sierra Leone, including the proposal to build and support centres where people could self-isolate voluntarily if they suspected that they could have the disease. In July 2015, he co-authored a paper in
The New England Journal of Medicine (with
Adel Mahmoud and
Stanley A. Plotkin), titled "Establishing a Global Vaccine-Development Fund", that led to the founding in 2017 of the
Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). Together with a number of others, in 2016 he proposed a World
Serum Bank as a means of helping combat
epidemics. In addition to his role at the Wellcome Trust, Farrar has served as chair on several advisory boards for governments and global organizations. In 2017, he was part of the selection committee chaired by
Jules A. Hoffmann that chose
Stewart Cole as director of the
Institut Pasteur. From 2017 until 2019, he was a member of the
German Ministry of Health’s International Advisory Board on Global Health, chaired by
Ilona Kickbusch. In 2019 he served on
The Lancet Commission on
Tuberculosis, co-chaired by
Eric Goosby,
Dean Jamison and
Soumya Swaminathan. He is also a member of the Health and Biomedical Sciences International Advisory Council (HBMS IAC) at the
Agency for Science, Technology and Research of Singapore. In 2020, he was appointed to the
Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, co-chaired by
Sheikh Hasina and
Mia Mottley. In the preparations for the Global Health Summit hosted by the
European Commission and the
G20 in May 2021, he was a member of the event's High Level Scientific Panel. Farrar has served on a number of WHO committees, co-chairing the
World Health Organization’s working group on
dengue vaccines from 2015 until 2016. Since its inception in 2017, Farrar has been chairing the Scientific Advisory Group of the WHO R&D Blueprint, a global strategy and preparedness plan that allows the rapid activation of research activities during epidemics. From 2018 to 2022, he served on the joint
World Bank/
WHO Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), co-chaired by
Elhadj As Sy and
Gro Harlem Brundtland. In 2019, he co-chaired a WHO committee evaluating
Ebola therapeutics. Farrar has also served on UK governments committees. In May 2020, amid the
COVID-19 pandemic, he was appointed to the expert advisory group for the UK Government’s Vaccine Task Force. (up to 2 November 2021, when Farrar resigned in disagreement with the government's approach), and
Public Health England’s Serology Working Group. During Farrar's time in SAGE, Health Secretary
Matt Hancock sought to have him removed from the group following his criticisms of the government's handling of Covid, the abolition of
Public Health England (PHE) and the appointment of
Dido Harding to head the ineffective and expensive
Test and Trace programme. In July 2021 he published the book
Spike: The Virus vs The People, co-authored with
Financial Times journalist
Anjana Ahuja, giving his account of the UK government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Farrar was listed in Time's 2024 most influential people in health list.
Views On 19 February 2020, Farrar, along with 26 other scientists, published a letter in
The Lancet titled "Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19'" in which the authors declared, "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." Farrar wrote an opinion piece in the Guardian on Dec. 4, 2021 stating he feared not enough was being done to vaccinate people in poor nations against
COVID-19. Farrar stated, “The longer this virus continues to spread in largely unvaccinated populations globally, the more likely it is that a variant that can overcome our vaccines and treatments will emerge. If that happens, we could be close to square one. This political drift and lack of leadership is prolonging the pandemic for everyone, with governments unwilling to really address inequitable access to the vaccines, tests and treatment. There have been wonderful speeches, warm words, but not the actions needed to ensure fair access to what we know works and would bring the pandemic to a close.” ==Other activities==