Dr Howard Njoo

Dr. Howard Njoo is the Deputy Chief Public Health Officer of Canada and Interim Vice-President of the Infectious Diseases Program Branch at the Public Health Agency of Canada. He directly supports the Chief Public Health Officer (CPHO) in providing public health advice, speaking to Canadians and representing the Agency in a variety of domestic and international fora.  In addition, Dr. Njoo is also the Co-Chair of the Communicable and Infectious Diseases Steering Committee reporting to the Public Health Network Council in Canada.

Dr. Njoo has worked at all three levels of the federal system of government in Canada as a public health physician and medical epidemiologist, as well as continuing to practice as a front line clinician in infectious diseases for over thirty years.  Prior to joining the federal government, Dr. Njoo was the Associate Medical Officer of Health for the City of Toronto Department of Public Health and also worked at the Ministry of Health for the province of Ontario.  Since joining the Federal Government in 1996, Dr. Njoo has held a variety of positions in the areas of both infectious and chronic diseases as well as emergency preparedness and response.

Dr. Njoo was involved at the senior management level for the Government of Canada’s response to the SARS (2003) and H1N1 (2009) outbreaks and has extensive international experience, including deployments to Haiti in 2010 post earthquake and Guinea in 2015 for the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak, and being a team member of international missions such as the Joint External Monitoring Mission for the National TB Program in Nepal.

Dr. Njoo is the current Designated International Health Regulations State Party Expert for Canada to the World Health Organization and was the technical lead on the Canadian delegation for the revision of the International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2004-2005.  Dr. Njoo has also participated as a team member and lead in multiple IHR Joint External Evaluations, including those for the Federated States of Micronesia, Grenada, and Germany.

Dr. Njoo earned his medical degree and a Master’s in Health Science, specializing in community health and epidemiology, from the University of Toronto, and  subsequently completed a fellowship and his certification with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in community medicine.

Dr. Njoo is also a consultant physician at the Ottawa Hospital Tuberculosis Clinic and has an adjunct appointment at the University of Ottawa in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health.