Sania Nishtar

Sania Nishtar (born 16 February 1963) is a Pakistani cardiologist, senator and author who became CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in 2024. Trained at Khyber Medical College and King's College London, she founded the health-policy think tank Heartfile, served in Pakistan's 2013 caretaker cabinet, led the Ehsaas poverty-alleviation programme as special assistant to the prime minister with the status of federal minister, and was elected to the Senate of Pakistan in 2021. ^{1 2}

Nishtar was born in Peshawar and went to Khyber Medical College, graduating top of her class in 1986. After residency at Khyber Teaching Hospital she was inducted into the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan in 1991, and in 1994 she joined the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences as a cardiologist, working there until 2007. She took her PhD in medicine from King's College London in 2002, became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 2005, and received an honorary doctorate of science from King's in 2019. In 1998 she founded Heartfile, which grew from a health-information NGO into a health-policy think tank; she later founded Heartfile Health Financing to protect poor patients from medical impoverishment. ^{1 3}

In 2013 Nishtar served in the interim federal cabinet, overseeing public health, education and science. In May 2019 she was appointed special assistant on poverty alleviation and social safety to the prime minister, with the status of federal minister, and chaired the Ehsaas programme. She was elected to the Senate in 2021 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In global health she co-chaired the WHO High-Level Commission on Noncommunicable Diseases and the WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity, was a shortlisted finalist for WHO director-general in 2017, and in 2024 became chief executive of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. No source read for this record names a religious school for Sania Nishtar, and this record records none. ^{1 4}

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