Dr Petra Khoury has been appointed as Director, Health and Care Department, based in Geneva, Switzerland, effective 04 October 2021.

Dr Petra Khoury, who is a national of both Lebanon and the United States, brings significant professional experience from both countries. Most recently, she led the national COVID-19 response and vaccination plan in Lebanon and was appointed as the Chair of the national COVID-19 Vaccination Executive Committee. In this capacity, she developed and executed the operational response and vaccination plan and became the nation's scientific spokesperson on COVID19 related matters, serving as the Public Health Advisor to the Prime Minister of Lebanon.

Prior to her leadership role in the national COVID-19 response in Lebanon, Petra served as Executive Administrator at the Medical Centre on Re-engineering the Delivery of Healthcare at the American University of Beirut Medical Centre (AUBMC), where she assisted the Director of the centre in programme management and evaluation. She was subsequently appointed as Chief Quality and Compliance Officer and joined the Executive Leadership Team at AUBMC. In this role, she had oversight over quality, safety, risk management, medico-legal, Joint Commission accreditations and regulatory compliance.

Petra holds a doctorate degree in Pharmacy from Lebanese American University in Lebanon. She trained at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts U.S.A, and specialized in infectious diseases. She also earned a Post-graduate certificate in Quality, Safety, Leadership and Informatics from Harvard Medical School. She is fluent in Arabic, English and French.