Ranieri Guerra has a long international career beginning with a focuse on Africa, Middle East,  and the Far East. He has served in the Italian National Institute of Health where he managed a large portfolio of research projects both domestically and internationally. He is a well-known planner and assessor of the Global Fund (where he served in the technical review panel first
rounds) and of EC funded programs in several areas of the world. He was the scientific director of the Italian National Foundation for health safety at work before serving as the Italian science counsellor at the Italian Embassy to the US, where he also chaired the association of Italian scientists in Washington, DC. He then served as the Director General of Preventive Medicine at the Italian Ministry of Health and as Italy chief medical officer before joining the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, where he was appointed the Assistant Director General for strategic programs for polio eradication and transition, AMR, IDPs and migrants’ health. He was a member of the EU Health security committee and a management board member of the ECDC; he acted as the Italian presidency team leader for the 2017/G7 health, and led four EU Joint actions (dementia, NCDs control, health system equity, health frailty). He designed the UN declaration on universal health coverage in 2019 in New York and assisted the government of Italy in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic as the WHO Director General’s special envoy. He is visiting professor at the West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Cheng Du, and has been adjunct professor of medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in addition to several academic assignments in Italian universities and academic bodies. He is currently the head of Accademia Nazionale di Medicina International Affairs section.