KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Introducing our Keynote Speakers
Keep an eye out for more speaker announcments coming soon.
Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala
WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific
Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala is the WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific
and the first Pacific islander to take up this role. He was nominated for this
position by the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific in October 2023,
appointed by the WHO Executive Board in January 2024 and took office on
1 February 2024.
Read more
Prior to his election as WHO Regional Director, Dr Piukala was a Member of
Parliament and Minister of Health of the Kingdom of Tonga. He also served
as Vice-Chair of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific
(October 2022 to October 2023), and chaired the Pacific Health Ministers
meeting hosted by Tonga in September 2023. From 2019 to 2022, he served
as a member of the WHO Executive Board, and was a Commissioner for
WHO’s Independent High-Level Commission on NCDs from 2018 to 2020.
Previously, Dr Piukala was Medical Superintendent of the main referral
hospital in Tonga, and worked as a Senior Medical Officer and General
Surgeon in Tonga and other Pacific islands including Fiji, Nauru, Niue and
Tuvalu.
Dr Piukala holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (1995), Postgraduate
Diploma in Surgery (2005) and Master of Medicine in Surgery (2009) from Fiji
School of Medicine / University of the South Pacific.