Dr. Samir K. Saha

Professor and Head

Department of Microbiology, Bangladesh Institute of Child Health

Dhaka Shishu Hospital

Executive Director

Child Health Research Foundation

Dr. Samir K. Saha is the Professor and Head of the Department of Microbiology at the Bangladesh Institute of Child Health at Dhaka Shishu Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In addition, Dr. Saha is an associate of the Department of International Health of Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, USA, and the Executive Director of Child Health Research Foundation, Bangladesh.

Dr. Saha obtained his MSc from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh in 1983, and a PhD from the Institute of Medical Sciences of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India, in 1989. Thereafter, Dr. Saha started up the microbiology laboratory of Dhaka Shishu Hospital with extremely limited resources, and gradually introduced modern techniques. For more than a decade, Dr. Saha’s research group has been doing surveillance of invasive childhood diseases in Bangladesh and generating data on Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenza. This research has contributed to a better understanding of the burden, drug resistance and epidemiology of childhood diseases like pneumonia, meningitis and typhoid. Indeed, Dr. Saha’s data have had a major impact on public health policy issues in Bangladesh and the surrounding region. For example, his group’s findings on H influenzae type b and Dr. Saha’s advocacy played a significant role in convincing the policymakers of Bangladesh to make an evidence-based decision to include the Hib vaccine in its national immunisation programme.

Dr. Saha is currently a member of the National Committee for Immunization Policies of the Government of Bangladesh. He is also a member of Pneumococcus Awareness Council of Experts (PACE).

He has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals, mostly relating to childhood pneumonia and meningitis.