Dr Alex Costa

Health Programme Team, UNICEF

Dr. Alex Costa is a Senior Health Advisor in the global Health Programme Group at UNICEF headquarters in New York where he coordinates UNICEF’s multisectoral response to Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and manages projects aimed at increasing access to in vitro diagnostics in low- and middle-income countries. He has broad experience in the life sciences and expertise in developing comprehensive public health laboratory systems in Africa and Southeast Asia for detection of AMR as well as diagnosis, preparedness, surveillance, and response to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Prior to joining UNICEF in 2017, he served as a technical officer at the World Health Organization in the Asia-Pacific region, where he was the focal point for laboratory diagnostics and AMR in Cambodia and Vietnam. He previously served as the director of the laboratory programme for the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) in Liberia where he supported the establishment of a national laboratory diagnostics program. He holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and carried out post-doctoral studies on infectious diseases at Stanford University.