Dr. Krutika Kuppalli is a medical officer with the World Health Organization in emerging diseases and zoonoses unit supporting COVID-19 health operations. She works with technical and clinical teams to help develop tools and guidance on treating COVID-19 patients.

She is a 2020 Emerging Leader in Biosecurity Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. As the vice chair of the Global Health Committee at the Infectious Diseases Society of America, she is spearheading efforts to prepare and train physicians to handle infectious diseases. Kuppalli has recently focused on ways to control the COVID-19 outbreak. In an op-ed, Kuppalli and the chair of the Global Health Committee highlighted the need for increased funding to government health agencies to strengthen global pandemic responses. 

Prior to her position with WHO, Kuppalli was an assistant professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina and an infectious disease physician who has focused on the care of vulnerable patients in the U.S. and abroad. Kuppalli has worked in Ethiopia, India, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Haiti and elsewhere. During the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014, she supervised treatment at an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone. She has experience caring for patients with HIV/AIDS, leading preparations for pandemic responses in resource-limited situations, and in the development of therapeutics for emerging pathogens. 

Expertise: Emerging infections, outbreak preparedness and response, biosecurity

Location: Charleston, S.C.

Email: krutika.kuppalli@gmail.com

Phone: (843) 876-0585

Twitter: @KrutikaKuppalli

Listen to Krutika Kuppalli on the IDSA COVID-19 podcast: