Θεοκλής Ζαούτης

For over two decades, I have worked as a physician, researcher, professor, and leader in the fields of pediatric infectious diseases and public health in both the United States and in Europe. My research and policy interests have focused on healthcare-acquired infections (HAI), antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and antimicrobial stewardship, and vaccination. I served as President of the National Public Health Organizaation (NPHO) in Greece during the COVID-19 pandemic (2021-23) and currentlyI hold an appointment as Professor of Pediatrics at the National and Kapodistrian School of Medicine and Professor Emeritus in Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where I served as Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases from 2014-18. The majority of my medical training was in the United States, with the exception of my PhD, which was completed at the National and Kapodistrian School of Medicine in Athens, Greece.

The Greek NPHO has approximately 380 full-time employees and over 1000 contract employees hired in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the refugee crisis in Greece. As part of my vision for the organization, I have worked vigorously with international partners and the U.S. CDC to create a new organizational chart and a proposal for the creation of an organization with a clear mission and vision, job descriptions, roles, and a standard operating procedure adapted to the current organization and Greek realities. Furthermore, we have secured significant funding (over 20 million Euros) from the European Recovery Fund for two major initiatives: digitalizing public health data and preparedness and response planning for future public health crises, including but not limited to pandemics. In my capacity at the Greek NPHO, I serve on several EU committees, including the Ad Hoc Eu Health Task Force Committee, whose work focuses on preparedness and response in public health, the ECDC Management Board, and the EU Health Security Council.

I have significant expertise in the areas of infection prevention, antimicrobial resistance, and vaccination, particularly in Greece, where I founded the Collaborative Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Outcomes Research (CLEO) in 2011. CLEO’s work includes the design and implementation of programs to prevent HAIs and to promote the judicious use of antibiotics, as well as a robust program of international, multi-center research and collaboration in the fields of epidemiology, infectious disease, vaccination, and antibiotic resistance. In 2016, CLEO established a national HAI surveillance network that includes neonatal intensive care units, paediatric intensive care units, paediatric oncology units, and units and departments of selected general hospitals across Greece; the following year, CLEO was one of twenty-seven NGOs shortlisted for the European Commission’s EU Health Award. The results of CLEO’s work are regularly published in internationally renowned peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented at international symposia, and have garnered popular media attention both in Greece and abroad. In 2016, in collaboration with the European Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID), CLEO began coordinating RANIN-KIDS (Reducing Antimicrobial use and Nosocomial INfections in KIDS: A European Network), a twenty-center consortium that aims to fight HAIs and reduce the inappropriate use of antibiotics among pediatric patients in Europe.

Also at the national level in Greece, I serve as a consultant to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) initiative “Supporting Greece’s Health Sector,” the implementation of which was formalized in a Memorandum of Understanding between the SNF and the Greek State in March 2018. I also serve as a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe in Greece, in which capacity I support the Greek Ministry of Health in the development of primary healthcare clinical guidelines and prescribing protocols for acute respiratory infection and urinary tract infection. In my current role as President of the Greek NPHI, I am overseeing the management of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the overall restructuring and strengthening of the public health organization in the several key areas including preparedness and response and epidemiologic surveillance.
In Europe, I served on the Antibiotic Resistance and Prescribing in European Children (ARPEC) Working Group and hold roles in ESPID, including serving as Director of the 2019 Research Master Class and as a member of the Bone and Joint Infections Guideline Committee. In 2018, I was appointed Chief Scientific Officer of the Penta Foundation, one of the leading organizations in Europe conducting research into pediatric infectious diseases. Penta is coordinator and sponsor in several large European Union-funded projects, including PREPARE (Platform foR European Preparedness Against (Re-)emerging Epidemics), which is tasked with preparing rapid responses to severe infectious diseases outbreaks in Europe and providing real-time evidence for clinical management of patients and informing public health responses.
In the United States, I served as Chair of the Pediatric Special Emphasis Panel of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Antimicrobial Leadership Group, and as a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Board of Scientific Counselor’s Antimicrobial Resistance Working Group and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Infectious Diseases (The Red Book Committee). I am the author of over 270 peer-reviewed publications, most of which are in the field of pediatric infectious diseases with a focus on HAIs, antimicrobial use and resistance, and vaccination, and I served as Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (JPIDS) from 2011-2021.

In addition to my work in public policy, my research in the areas of HAIs and AMR have had an important impact on these fields. I have led a group of healthcare epidemiologists in research that has identified the prevalence of, risk factors for, and outcomes of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) caused by antibiotic-resistant organisms; as well as in a series of studies on Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), a common HAI. My research has also included a series of studies on antimicrobial stewardship that have helped define the standards for pediatric stewardship programs in both the hospital and ambulatory care setting, as well as qualitative studies to identify contextual barriers to the implementation of stewardship. My study of outpatient antimicrobial stewardship, a cluster-randomized clinical trial funded by the U.S. Federal Government’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), resulted in a 40% decrease in antibiotic use for common respiratory tract infections, an effect size greater than previously reported in studies.
Administratively, I created and served as the director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at CHOP from 2004-2011. As Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, I also oversaw the Vaccine Education Center at CHOP, which provides complete, up-to-date and reliable information about vaccines to parents and healthcare professionals and is a member of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Vaccine Safety Net because the website meets the criteria for credibility and content as defined by the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety.

In addition to experience in the fields of HAIs, AMR, and vaccination, I have substantial expertise with respect to methodological research, which allows me to effectively address problems in other content areas. I have served as Director of the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness Research (CPCE) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia since 2014, and was Associate Director for seven years prior to that. The mission of CPCE is to discover and disseminate knowledge about best practices in the management of pediatric disease; to facilitate, organize, and centralize the performance of clinical effectiveness research for the institution; and to mentor junior faculty members and fellows. The CPCE employs 30 core faculty members and over 50 researchers, and includes a healthcare analytics unit with nine full-time programmers who use large datasets to answer epidemiologic questions. Studies conducted by the CPCE have informed policies or are in the process of informing guidelines made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

Finally, I have strong leadership skills and extensive experience running and managing large groups and organizations. In my role as Scientific Consultant at the Penta Foundation, I help coordinate the scientific agenda for a network that includes hundreds of researchers and physicians involved in clinical research and training at over 90 clinical sites in 18 countries around the world. Penta is also the coordinator of the newly funded COllaborative Network for European Clinical Trials For Children (Conect for Children; c4c), a multidisciplinary collaboration between academic and private sectors that includes 33 academic and 10 industry partners from 20 European countries, as well as more than 50 third parties and some 500 affiliated partners.
I believe my strengths are in leadership, collaboration, communication, and creative problem-solving. These strengths are undergirded by the decades of knowledge and expertise that I have accumulated in the field of infectious diseases, and are animated by the personal passion I feel for advancing the public health and healthcare field.