Dr. Unni Karunakara has been elected and formally installed as new president of international medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres. Taking over from Dr. Christophe Fournier, Karunakara will be in charge of MSF’s worldwide operations for the next three years. He will hold office from the MSF headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Under his leadership, Karunakara promised MSF will remain “relevant for the survival of large numbers of people, if we manage to constantly adapt our organization to new realities.”
Karunakara first became engaged with MSF work in 1995, when he helped establish a tuberculosis control program in Ethiopia. He has since been involved in MSF activities in Azerbaijan, Brazil, Congo, Bangladesh and several other countries in the Middle East, southern Africa and Latin America. In 2002, he served in the public health department of MSF’s office in Amsterdam.
