Sandy Gove MD, MPH
Executive Director and Board Chair 
California, USA

After training in internal medicine and clinical epidemiology at UCSF and UC Berkeley, Sandy spent 3 year in Somalia working on maternal and child health and tuberculosis control. She joined the World Health Organization (WHO) Control of Diarrhoeal Diseases program in 1990 to develop the first Acute Respiratory Infection/childhood pneumonia program, then was the technical lead for its expansion to Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), a strategy adapted for use in more than 100 countries. From 1996 to 2000 she worked on the development of the Integrated Management of Pregnancy and Childbirth (through the WHO reproductive health department) and the Practical Approach to Lung Health, which incorporated the management of adult pneumonia, asthma and COPD with that for TB (through the WHO TB department). From 2000 to her retirement from WHO in 2011, she led the development and implementation of Integrated Management of Adolescent and Adult Illness (IMAI). Through her work with IMAI, Dr. Gove coordinated the IMAI first-level (health centre) programme which included the development of the guideline manuals, Acute Care, Chronic HIV Care/ART, Palliative care amongst others, with their associated clinical training programme through their adaptation, field-testing and implementation in countries. The first level tools were used extensively in Africa to support the scale up of antiretroviral therapy and HIV care through an integrated approach. This training programme is participatory and established the use of expert-patient trainers, people living with HIV/AIDS, to simulate clinical cases in order to train health workers from various cadres (doctors, nurses, and auxiliary staff) in resource-limited settings.

Dr. Gove also was instrumental in leading the evidence-baseddevelopment of theWHO IMAI District Clinician Manual (DCM), published in 2012, through an extensive coordination of global experts and working groups across multiple disciplines. This manual provides management guidelines for clinicians working at district hospitals in limited resource settings. Dr. Gove then developed and implemented the IMAI 2nd level learning programme for district hospitals based on the DCM. Through a clinical team, participatory approach, health workers from all cadres (clinicians-doctors and nurses, managers, and auxiliary staff) are trained in triage, emergency care and treatment, critical care management, disease surveillance and case reporting, and infection prevention and control, including for viral haemorragic fever. 

Within WHO, IMAI has been housed in the WHO Stop TB program, then the Department for Neglected Tropical Diseases, then the HIV Department. IMAI now receives substantial WHO support from the Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases Department, given its relevance to surveillance and case management of notifiable diseases. Sandy retired from WHO In 2011 and continues to work on providing technical support in theIMAI approach and its implementation in countries as Executive Director of the IMAI-IMCI Alliance. In Uganda, Dr. Gove, with the Alliance team, worked with the Ugandan Ministry of Health in the adaptation of the IMAI District Clinician Manual, which incorporates all relevant communicable and non-communicable diseases of adolescents and adults, including the development of the pocket guide for viral haemorrhagic fever for health workers. She continues to advocate for an integrated approach to the district management of adult illness in limited- resource countries- with an integrated approach to caring for each patient, as well as functional integration between the community, health centre and hospital levels of care- and the relevance of these integrated tools for multiple global health programs.