Dr Zishiri assumes leadership of The Union Zimbabwe Office upon the retirement of Dr Nyathi
Christopher Zishiri
Barnet Nyathi
Dr Zishiri is a Zimbabwean medical doctor with post-graduate training in public health from the University of Zimbabwe. He did five years of further specialisation in Public Health Medicine in the United Kingdom, which resulted in his election as a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal College of Physicians.
Dr Zishiri has 20 years of experience in the field of health. He has worked in various clinical and managerial positions rising from being a government medical officer, to district medical officer to provincial medical director. He played a pivotal role in spearheading health sector reforms in the early 2000s and was national focal person for tobacco control in Zimbabwe and leader of the Zimbabwean delegation to the World Health Organization Intergovernmental Negotiating Body on the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control. At the time of his appointment to Zimbabwe Country Director of The Union, Dr Zishiri was serving as a consultant in Public Health Medicine with the Birmingham City Council. With his new Union appointment, he will be based in Harare.
An expert on HIV/AIDS and TB, Dr Barnet Nyathi will retire after more than 40 years of experience in the field of health and 30 year of managing health programmes at national and international levels. He joined The Union in December 2008 to serve as the Senior Technical Officer for The Union’s TB CAP Programme in Zimbabwe and became the Director of The Union Zimbabwe Office when it opened in 2009.
Key achievements under his leadership have included:
- Management of TBCAP and TB CARE I (2008–present) and the current PEPFAR-funded decentralised and integrated TB-HIV project
- Strengthening National TB Programme (NTP) management capacity through development of management tools (plans, guidelines, training materials, progress reports), training and monitoring & evaluation
- Strengthening TB service delivery at sub-national level through extensive training, support supervision and recoding and reporting throughout the country
- Supporting introduction of Programmatic Management of Drug Resistant tuberculosis (PMDT)
- Spearheading roll out of decentralised and integrated TB-HIV care following a successful five-year EU-supported pilot
- Introduction of a motorcycle-based sputum transport system to improve TB case detection
- Strengthened laboratory TB diagnosis through use of Gene Xpert in the diagnosis of TB in HIV-positive patients, and diagnosis of drug-resistant TB
- Supported NTP in the development of community TB care
- Promoting strong team work with the National TB Programme and National AIDS Programme
Prior to joining The Union, Dr Nyathi held senior health programme management positions in the UNAIDS South African country office as the UNAIDS Country Coordinator and Programme Adviser, UNAIDS Intercountry Team for Eastern and Southern Africa, as well as at the City of Bulawayo Health Services, where he was Director of Health Services. He has served several international organisations as a consultant on HIV/AIDS and TB.
“The Union is very grateful to Dr Nyathi for his outstanding work in Zimbabwe”, says José Luis Castro, Interim Executive Director of The Union. “I know the Zimbabwe staff – and all The Union staff – join me in thanking him and in welcoming his successor, Dr Christopher Zishiri”.