Dr Nils E. Billo, MD, MPH, Executive Director

Under the leadership of Dr Billo, The Union has grown into a leading international health organisation, with more than 10,000 members and subscribers in 152 countries, and some 300 staff and consultants working from Paris and regional and country offices in 11 countries.

The Union's mandate has expanded to include not only tuberculosis and lung disease, but also some of today's most vital interrelated public health issues, such as child lung health, HIV/AIDS, the pandemic of diseases caused by tobacco use and the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

The Union is active in some 75 countries each year offering technical assistance, providing education and training and conducting research. Its current activities include the annual World Conference on Lung Health, the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, the Asthma Drug Facility, the International Management Development Programme, International Tuberculosis Courses, Bloomberg Initiative Tobacco Control Grants Programme, TREAT TB, Integrated HIV Care for TB Patients Living with HIV/AIDS (IHC) Programme, Project Axshya and the Centre for Operational Research.

Dr Billo completed his medical training at the University of Basel, Switzerland and holds a Master's of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the Stop TB Coordinating Board and past president of the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), which organised the 2010 Year of the Lung campaign. Before joining The Union, he was head of the Epidemiology Section of the Federal Office of Public Health in Switzerland.

José Luis Castro, Deputy Executive Director

José Luis Castro joined The Union in 2001 as Director of the Department of Finance and Development. In this capacity he participated in The Union's growth and international expansion, and, in 2008, he was appointed Deputy Executive Director. In this position, he is responsible for financial and project management, grants administration, fundraising, and the International Management Development Programme.

Mr. Castro formerly worked for the City of Philadelphia and joined the New York City Department of Public Health in 1991. There he helped develop and implement the Municipal Public Health Services Plan and played a key role in obtaining funds for public health laboratories and the AIDS Hotline. From 1993–1998, he served as Director of Operations for the Bureau of Tuberculosis Control. The programme he helped to build is still used in New York City and is considered an international model for TB control. He then worked as an advisor to the World Health Organization in India assisting in the implementation of the Revised National TB Control Programme.

Mr Castro is a graduate of Pace University and of the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a master's degree in governmental administration. He has received numerous awards, including a doctor of humane letters honoris causa from Pace University.

He is a member of the board of directors of the World Lung Foundation and Fundación Carlos J. Finlay; and he serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Health Management. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Training and Development, and the European Respiratory Society.

Dr Paula I. Fujiwara, Senior Technical Advisor and Director, Department of TB and HIV

Since 2001, Dr. Fujiwara has served as the Senior Technical Advisor at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union). Since 2003, she has had additional responsibilities as Director, Department of HIV, and in 2010, also became the director of The Union's Department of TB. She was seconded to The Union by the International Research and Programs Branch (IRPB), Division of Tuberculosis Elimination (DTBE) in the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP), US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Fujiwara serves on WHO's STAG-TB, is a core group member of the Stop TB Partnership's MDRTB Working Group and WHO/EURO's TB Advisory Group. She has served on the Global Fund's Technical Review Panel (TRP) and the Rolling Continuation Channel sub-group of the TRP. She is the Principal Investigator for two European Commission grants related to HIV/TB care. She is The Union focal point for the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) TB CARE I project. She was the primary technical consultant for the Union for the National TB and Leprosy Programme (NTLP) in Uganda from 2002-2009 and has provided technical assistance to NTPs in Benin, DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Japan, Indonesia, and Singapore, among others.

From 1992-2000, Dr. Fujiwara was seconded by CDC to New York City's Bureau of Tuberculosis Control, where she served Supervisory Medical Advisor, Director of the Multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis Team, then as Assistant Director for Medical Affairs, Director of Epidemiology and Surveillance, and finally as Director and the Assistant Commissioner of Health for the Bureau of TB Control. During this period, the incidence of TB declined by more than two-thirds and MDR-TB almost disappeared.

Dr. Fujiwara holds an M.D. degree from the University of California (UC), Davis. She completed her internal medicine residency and a fellowship in Health Services Research at UC, San Francisco. She received an MPH and a Master's in Health and Medical Sciences (Genetic Counseling) from UC, Berkeley. She has published scholarly articles, particularly on the public health aspects of TB control and MDR-TB.

Prof. Donald A. Enarson, Senior Scientific Advisor

Dr Enarson is Scientific Advisor to the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) in Paris. He held the post of Director of Scientific Activities from 1991 to 2006.

He was born in Canada in 1946 where he obtained the MD degree at the University of Alberta in 1970. Postgraduate studies were taken at the University of British Columbia and the Mayo Clinic (in USA). He was awarded the Diploma of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada in 1978.

He worked in development programmes in Sudan and in the Philippines before joining the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia in 1980. He became Professor of Medicine at the University of Alberta in 1987 and has held the post of Adjunct Professor there since 1993. His research has focused on the epidemiology of tuberculosis and of occupational lung diseases and on health services research in tuberculosis and lung health.

Dr Enarson has served as a public health advisor to 42 countries around the world. Widely called upon as a lecturer, he has also coordinated training in China, Egypt, France, India, Kenya, Mongolia, Mozambique, Pakistan, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Over the course of his career, he has published 343 scientific books, chapters and articles.

He currently resides in Paris with his wife who is also an international consultant in public health.

Prof. Anthony D. Harries, Senior Advisor, Director, Department of Research

Prof Anthony David Harries is Senior Advisor at The Union and an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He is a physician and a registered specialist in the United Kingdom in infectious diseases and tropical medicine. He spent over 20 years living and working in sub-Saharan Africa, starting in North-east Nigeria in 1983. In 1986, he moved to Malawi where he was consecutively Consultant Physician, Foundation Professor of Medicine at the new medical school in Blantyre, National Advisor to the Malawi Tuberculosis Control Programme and National Advisor in HIV care and treatment in the Ministry of Health, responsible for scaling up antiretroviral therapy in the country.

In 2008, he returned to UK and took his current position as Senior Advisor with The Union. In 2009, he was also appointed Director of the new Department of Research, which comprises the Centre for Operational Research, Health Policy Unit and Clinical Trials Unit.

Prof Harries' main interests are in the field of tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, tropical medicine and operational research. He has received several awards and prizes for his work, and in 2002 was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to work in tuberculosis in Africa.