Professor Balkhy graduated from King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1991. She completed her paediatric residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston USA 1993-1996; followed by a paediatric infectious diseases fellowship from 1996-1999 from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Prior to her appointment with WHO, she was the Executive Director, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) at the Ministry of National Guard for 10 years and prior to that, the hospital epidemiologist for 10 years. She also led the establishment of the infectious diseases research department at King Abdulla International Research Centre at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Professor Balkhy runs the WHO Collaborating Centre for IPC and anti-microbial resistance (AMR) and the Gulf Cooperation Council center for infection control. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Infection and Public Health and has over 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Professor Balkhy is a member of the WHO Global unit for IPC,and in addition has served on many WHO committees including: the Advisory Group on Integrated Surveillance and Antimicrobial Resistance (AGISAR), the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (STAG-AMR), the International Health Regulations review committee (IHR-RC) and the most recent Interagency Coordination Group committee for AMR. With her broad spectrum of responsibilities, she has been able to develop the expertise in managing and leading both her teams of infection preventioninsts on one hand and research teams in the fields of AMR and MERS-CoV on the other. She has received two research awards from her institution acknowledging her leading role in her field. Most recently she has been given the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Fellows honorary title.
