Hanna Nohynek

MD, PhD, Chief Physician, Department of Health Security in the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Finland

Dr. Hanna Nohynek (b. 1958) received her MD and PhD degree in the University of Helsinki Finland. She holds special expertise of International Health and Travel Medicine of the Finnish Medical Association. She presently works as Chief Physician in the Department of Health Security in the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Finland.

Before joining the national immunization programme (NIP) in 2010, Dr Nohynek worked as an Academy researcher developing serodiagnostic methodology to detect causative agents of childhood pneumonia, and then as a clinical trialist carrying out several phase II studies on Hib and pneumococcal vaccines in pregnant mothers and infants in the Philippines. She was the scientific coordinator of the ARIVAC consortium carrying out a major phase III RCT on a novel pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in children in the Philippines. She practices clinical medicine at the Aava travel health clinic in Helsinki since 2005, and initiated the THL International Travel Health advice and Vaccinators Manual already in 1990´s.

Dr. Nohynek serves as secretary of the Finnish NITAG since 2010, and co-leads the THL team of influenza surveillance and vaccination programme. She was instrumental in designing the HPV vaccine introduction to NIP in Finland. Her present research interests are register based vaccine impact studies, evidence based policy/decision making, vaccine safety, hesitancy, SARS-CoV-2, RSV, influenza, pertussis, pneumococcus and meningococcus. She was the THL team lead of the European Commission funded Joint Action Vaccines (www.eu-jav.com), with commitments to the workpackages on Vaccine Hesitancy and Vaccine Research & Development. She also co-coordinated the workpackage on communications of the DRIVE consortium, which studied brand-specific influenza vaccine effectiveness under EU IMI funding. She has authored >170 original articles (incl first scientific report on association between pandemic influenza vaccination vs narcolepsy), teaches, guides elective, graduate, and PhD students. She has served on expert committees evaluating HBV, PCV, influenza, rota virus vaccines in Finland, and as advisor to EU, IMI, IVI, WHO, GAVI, SIDA/SRC, Finnish MOFA. She belonged to the Scientific Committee of ECCMID 2015-19, and ESPID 2019-20, was Chairman of EPIET 1998-2001, and member of EDCTP 2002-3. She was member of WHO GACVS on two terms (2006-2012), since 2018 member of the WHO SAGE subgroup Influenza Vaccines, and the Chairman of WHO SAGE external evaluation (EAGSE) in 2018-19. She became member of SAGE since 2020, and vice chair of SAGE in 2021, and chairman of the SAGE subcommittee on covid-19 vaccinations in 2020-22. She is a member of the ECDC NITAG coordinating committee as well as the EU Vaccine Monitoring Platform Advisory Committee, and Vice chair and Board Member of the International Vaccine Institute since 2016. She belongs to the founding Faculty of the Advance Course in Vaccinology ADVAC since 2000-, and initiated the EPIET vaccine module 1997, and Finnish Diploma Course in Global Health 2000. She is a keen cyclist, and spends her spare time in the country side enjoying nature with her family, including seven grand children.