Fernanda Lessa is the Chief of the International Infection Control Branch (IICB) at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. IICB works to protect patients and healthcare workers globally through development and implementation of sustainable solutions to address infectious diseases threats in healthcare facilities, including healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistance, and infectious disease outbreaks.
She has over 15 years of experience in healthcare epidemiology and infection prevention and control. She joined CDC in 2006 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer in the Surveillance Branch with the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP), where she led analyses of National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) data on healthcare-associated infections among neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients and revisions of NICU healthcare-associated infections’ definitions with a focus on bloodstream infections.
Fernanda has extensive experience inhealthcare epidemiology in the United States and abroad. She has led population-based surveillance programs for Clostridioides difficile and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the United States, Global Pneumococcal Program working with pneumococcal vaccine implementation and evaluation across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, and has overseen implementation of the Global Action in Healthcare Network (GAIHN) for rapid detection, prevention, and response of antimicrobial resistant threats in healthcare settings globally. She is an infectious diseases trained physician from Brazil with a Master’s in Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley. She is a former Fogarty Fellow and has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers and co-authored infectious diseases book chapters.