Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala took office as WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific on 1 February 2024 for a five-year term.

Dr Piukala brings to the role nearly 30 years of experience as a politician, public health leader and surgeon. He is a champion of multisectoral collaboration to tackle noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and the threat to health posed by climate change, leading initiatives for universal health coverage, infectious diseases, youth health, tobacco control, safe surgery, and disaster response.

Formerly a Member of Parliament and Minister of Health of Tonga, Dr Piukala led the country’s responses to the 2022 volcanic eruption, tsunami, and COVID-19 pandemic, achieving high vaccination coverage and a low fatality rate for the latter. He served as Vice-Chair of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific from October 2022 to October 2023, and chaired the Pacific Health Ministers meeting hosted by Tonga in September 2023. From 2019 to 2022 he served a member of the WHO Executive Board, and he was a Commissioner for WHO’s Independent High-Level Commission on NCDs from 2018 to 2020.

Previously, Dr Piukala was Medical Superintendent of the main referral hospital in Tonga, and worked as a Senior Medical Officer and General Surgeon in Tonga and other Pacific islands including Fiji, Nauru, Niue and Tuvalu.

Dr Piukala holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, a Postgraduate Diploma in Surgery and a Master of Medicine in Surgery from the Fiji School of Medicine/University of the South Pacific.