Harish Nair
Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Global Health
- Usher Institute
- College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Contact details
Address
- Street
-
Usher Institute – University of Edinburgh
Old Medical School
Teviot Place - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9AG
Background
Professor Harish Nair is Chair of Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Global Health and leads the Respiratory Viral Epidemiology research programme at the University of Edinburgh. He has led several large collaborative projects on global child health and infectious diseases. He currently leads (and is the co-ordinator of) the REspiratory Syncytial virus Consortium in EUrope (RESCEU) and the Respiratory Virus Global Epidemiology Network (RSV GEN). He also leads the Infectious Diseases Research Programme in the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Respiratory Health (RESPIRE). He is a co-founder of ReSViNET. In 2019, Professor Nair was awarded the Principal’s Medal for Exceptional Service by the University of Edinburgh; and the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) Award by the NRI Society of India.
Qualifications
MBBS, DCH, MSc, PhD, FRCPE, FFPH, FHEA
Responsibilities & affiliations
Professor Nair is the Post Graduate Research Advisor Global Health (PhDs) at the University of Edinburgh. Prof Nair is a member of several WHO Technical Advisory Groups and Chairs the External Advisory Group for WHO’s Global RSV Surveillance Programme. He is a member of the Independent Steering Committee for Global Influenza and RSV Initiative (GIRI). In 2014, Professor Nair was elected as a Member of Royal Society of Edinburgh Young Academy of Scotland.
Professor Nair is a Regional Editor for the Journal of Global Health and Editor of two Journal of Infectious Diseases supplements on RSV.
Undergraduate teaching
Professor Nair is involved in supervision of 4-6 MBChB Student Selected Component (SSC) year 5 projects each year. He also supervises 1-2 MBChB students doing an intercalated (BMedSci) degree in Epidemiology and Global Health. Students are generally offered projects that are part of the large research programme that he leads. He generally encourages all his students to take their work to publication and to date over 50 of the student projects have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including Lancet journals. He also encourages and facilitates his students to do an internship with WHO. Previous students have found these opportunities to be very exciting and have managed to publish manuscripts based on their work at WHO.
Postgraduate teaching
Professor Nair leads the elective course “Epidemiology for Public Health” within the Master of Public Health (MPH) programme. He also lectures on the “Global Health Epidemiology” elective. He supervises (on an average) 2 MPH student dissertations every year.
Professor Nair has supervised 6 PhD students who have successfully defended their PhDs on Respiratory Viral Infections (4 students), Gender Inequity in Child Health (1 student) and Refugee Health (1 student). He is currently supervising 8 PhD students in Edinburgh on various topics related to his research interests and co-supervising 1 PhD student project outwith Edinburgh.
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Research summary
Professor Nair’s research focuses on child pneumonia. He has received over £49 million (£45 million as PI / Work Package Leader) in grant funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NIHR, World Health Organisation, UNICEF and Sanofi Pasteur.
He has led studies that reported the first and most widely cited disease burden estimates for RSV, influenza and human metapneumovirus related child pneumonia. The updated current estimates are regarded as the most comprehensive and respected in the field. Apart from his main interest in child pneumonia epidemiology, he has a strong interest in refugee health and gender inequities in child health and has contributed to internationally leading research on neonatal health, maternal health and health sector reforms.
Project activity
Professor Harish Nair’s projects include work on child pneumonia, RSV, influenza and other infectious diseases like pneumococcus, meningococcus and Clostridium difficile.RESCEU
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Recommendations for respiratory syncytial virus surveillance at national level
In:
European Respiratory Journal, vol. 2021, pp. 2003766
DOI: https://doi.org/1
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Global burden of influenza-associated lower respiratory tract infections and hospitalizations among adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis
In:
PLoS Medicine, vol. 18, pp. e1003550
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003550
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Risk factors for RSV associated acute lower respiratory infection poor outcome and mortality in young children: A systematic review and meta-analysis
In:
Journal of Infectious Diseases
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiaa751
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
The temporal association of introducing and lifting non-pharmaceutical interventions with the time-varying reproduction number (R) of SARS-CoV-2: a modelling study across 131 countries
In:
The Lancet Infectious Diseases, vol. 21
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30785-4
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Influenza vaccination strategies for 2020-21 in the context of COVID-19
In:
Journal of Global Health, vol. 10, pp. 021102
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.10.021102
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Global burden of acute lower respiratory infection associated with human metapneumovirus in children under five years for 2018: a systematic review and modelling study
In:
The Lancet Global Health
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(20)30393-4
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
National burden estimates of hospitalisations for acute lower respiratory infections due to respiratory syncytial virus in young children in 2019 among 58 countries: a modelling study
In:
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30322-2
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Change in national, regional, and state-level pneumonia and severe pneumonia morbidity in India:: modelled estimates for 2000 and 2015
In:
The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, vol. 4, pp. 678-687
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(20)30129-2
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Unveiling the risk period for mortality after respiratory syncytial virus illness in young children using a self-controlled case series design
In:
Journal of Infectious Diseases
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiaa309
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Hospital admission trends for bronchiolitis in Scotland, 2001-2016:: a national retrospective observational study
In:
Journal of Infectious Diseases
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiaa323
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print)