Dr Petra Khoury is Global Director of Health and Care at IFRC headquarters in Geneva. In her current role, she oversees the IFRC operational plan on global health security, health protection and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). She works with a network of 191 National Red Cross Red Crescent Societies on health preparedness, readiness and emergency response plans. 

Prior to this role, she held a public health leadership role serving as Senior Health Adviser to the Prime Minister of Lebanon and led the national COVID-19 response plan as well as chairing the national COVID-19 Vaccination Executive Committee. In this capacity, she developed and executed the operational response and vaccination plan and became the nation's scientific spokesperson on COVID-19-related matters. She also coordinated the national health disaster plan after the 2020 Beirut explosion on 4 August.  

Prior to joining the public health sector, Petra was Chief Quality and Compliance Officer and part of the Executive Leadership Team at the American University of Beirut Medical Centre (AUBMC). In this role, she had oversight over quality, safety, risk management, medico-legal matters, Joint Commission accreditations and regulatory compliance. She started her clinical career as a healthcare professional at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) covering different patient care services as infectious disease specialist and managed the antimicrobial stewardship programme.  

Petra holds a doctorate degree in Pharmacy. She completed her residency training at MGH, where she specialized in infectious diseases. She also earned a post-graduate certificate in Quality, Safety, Leadership and Informatics from Harvard Medical School. She is fluent in Arabic, English and French.