Prof Shamez Ladhani PhD MRCPCH(UK) MSc(distinction) MBBS(hons) BSc(hons) is a paediatric infectious diseases specialist at St. George’s Hospital, a reader in paediatric infectious diseases at St. George’s University of London and consultant epidemiologist at Public Health England, where he is the clinical lead for a number of national vaccine preventable infections, including Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Neisseria meningitidis, which are all major causes of childhood bacterial meningitis. He completed his medical training at Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals, London, and then worked in a children’s hospital in rural Kenya. Upon returning to London, he obtained his PhD in genetic epidemiology and vaccine failure in children and completed his specialist paediatric infectious diseases training at St. George’s and Great Ormond Street Hospitals, London. He is currently responsible for the national evaluation of the meningococcal group B vaccine, Bexsero®, in the national infant immunisation programme and the meningococcal ACWY conjugate vaccination programme for teenagers, as well as the pneumococcal immunisation programme. He is also leading surveillance for COVID-19 in children at Public Health England. His main research interests include current and future vaccine-preventable infectious diseases and he has published extensively in this field.