Daniel Tarantola

Daniel Tarantola was born in Ajaccio (Corsica), France, in 1942. He is a Professor of Health and Human Rights at the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia, leading a cross-Faculty research initiative involving the Faculties of Medicine, Law and Arts and Social Sciences. Having obtained his medical degree from Paris University, Daniel began an international health career in 1971 in the context of emergency humanitarian medical missions to Biafra (Nigeria), and Peru. He was engaged in a movement with Bernard Kouchner which resulted in the foundation of Médecins Sans Frontières, of which he was the first physician working in the field (1973, Burkina Faso). Early in his career, Daniel worked over almost two decades with the World Health Organization on large scale international health programmes, including the eradication of smallpox from Bangladesh (1974–1978),^[1] childhood disease control programmes (1979–1984), the Expanded Programme on Immunization, the Control of Diarrhoeal Diseases Programme, the Acute Respiratory Infections Programme and as a senior member of the team who designed and started the launching of the WHO Global programme on HIV/AIDS (1987–1990).

Having left WHO in 1991, Daniel was over a period of eight years a Lecturer in the Department of Population and International Health of the Harvard School of Public Health and a Senior Associate of the Harvard-based François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. With Jonathan Mann, with whom he was closely associated over a period of twelve years, he co-authored and co-edited a number of publications including two volumes of AIDS in the World, in 1992^[2] and 1996,^[3] respectively. While Mann is the person most associated with the movement that seeks to integrate public health and human rights by conceptualizing them as interdependent, it is fair to say that in a less public manner Tarantola played (and continues to play) an equally key role in working to establish 'health and human rights' as integral to the on-the-ground work of IGOs, states, and NGOs.

From 1998-2004, Daniel rejoined the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva as a Senior Policy Adviser to the Director General with a specific focus on health and human rights, HIV/AIDS and communicable diseases, and family health. Additionally during the latter part of this period, Daniel occupied the function of Director of the WHO Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals.

Under the auspices of the UNSW Initiative for Health and Human Rights ([1]) at the University of New South Wales, Daniel’s current work aims at exploring the interface and synergies between health, development and human rights^[4] as they relate, among other topics, to: HIV, Hepatitis C, poverty and human development, climate change, indigenous populations, migration, refugees and post-disaster impact mitigation.

1. ^ Joarder AK, Tarantola D and Tulloch J (1979) Smallpox Eradication in Bangladesh (World Health Organization Monograph Series No. 8, South East Asia) World Health Organization Regional Publications, New Delhi
2. ^ Mann JM, Tarandola D and Netter T (eds) (1992) AIDS in the World: the Global AIDS Policy Coalition Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass
3. ^ Mann JM and Tarantola D (eds) (1996) AIDS in the World II: Global Dimensions, Social Roots and Responses Oxford University Press, New York [English, Japanese, Chinese]
4. ^ Tarantola D, Byrnes A, Johnson M, Kemp L, Zwi AB, Gruskin S (2008) ‘Human Rights, Health and Development’ Australian Journal of Human Rights 13(2):1-32. Available from: http://www.ihhr.unsw.edu.au/images/Home_Page/TSPaper081_HRHD_EN.pdf

Persondata
Name	Tarantola
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1942
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death