Professor Karl Ekdahl is a medical doctor and a specialist in infectious diseases with academic degrees from the Lund University, Sweden (PhD), Prince Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand (DTM&H), and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (MSc). In 1999 he became Associate Professor and in 2007 Adjunct Professor in Infectious Disease Epidemiology, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. He has authored some 100 scientific articles and two books, and has tutored 10 PhD students. Since 2007, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the ECDC-published scientific journal Eurosurveillance.
Karl has worked for more than 15 years with communicable disease prevention at regional, national and international levels. Between 2001 and 2005 he held the position of Deputy State Epidemiologist for Sweden, and for 2 years he was also the Communication Director of the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control.
In March 2005, Karl was the first expert to join the new European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Within ECDC, he has been Strategic Adviser to the Director (2005-2007), Head of the Health Communication Unit (2007-2010), Acting ECDC Director (February to April 2010), and Head of the new Communication and Country Cooperation Unit (since June 2010).
His unit presently employs some 55 persons, bridging between communication and public health, with different sections for scientific communication, public communication and media, web services, country cooperation and a knowledge and resource centre on health communication. Karl is a strong advocate for cross-sectoral cooperation as a basis for effective public health actions.