Who is Vidur Sharma, The Indian-American Appointed as COVID Testing Adviser by Joe Biden?

Born in Wisconsin and raised in Minnesota, and the son of Indian immigrants, Sharma is a graduate of Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health and Saint Louis University.

Washington: Another Indian-American has found place in US President-elect Joe Biden’s team against the pandemic. Biden has named health policy expert Vidur Sharma as testing advisor in his COVID-19 Response Team, as the US President-elect laid out his ambitious goal to intensify vaccinations across the country to tackle the spread of the deadly pandemic.

The announcement of Sharma’s appointment as Policy Advisor for Testing was made by Biden on Friday along with additional members of the White House COVID-19 Response Team.

During the Obama administration, Sharma served as a health policy advisor on the Domestic Policy Council.

Sharma supported the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, aligned Federal Department and Agencies, and collaborated with community stakeholders to further the administration’s health policy agenda.

He also served as Deputy Research Director with Protect Our Care, a coalition of advocacy organisations dedicated to preventing the repeal of the ACA. Since then, Sharma has advised health sector organisations on value-based care arrangements at PwC Strategy.

Born in Wisconsin and raised in Minnesota, and the son of Indian immigrants, Sharma is a graduate of Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health and Saint Louis University.

Among other appointments announced Friday were Amy Chang, Policy Advisor; Abbe Gluck, Special Counsel; David Kessler, Chief Science Officer of COVID Response; Rosa Po, COVID Response Team Deputy Chief of Staff; Andy Slavitt, Senior Advisor to the COVID Response Coordinator; Ben Wakana, Deputy Director of Strategic Communications & Engagement; and B. Cameron Webb, Senior Policy Advisor for COVID-19 Equity.

The Transition said that the appointees will play integral roles in implementing and executing Biden’s strategy to effectively and equitably vaccinate as many people as possible, while also increasing testing and taking other important steps that will be key to changing the course of the pandemic.

(With inputs from PTI)