Speaker Meeting: PDG Dr. Keith Paver, Consultant Virologist and Professor of Virology - Viruses including Covid-19 and Polio.

Professor Keith Paver has worked in the field of public health for 40 years. Originally recruited straight from Bristol University with a BSc in Microbiology, he joined the Public Health Laboratory Service as a research clinical scientist in 1969, where he remained for the next 40 years until his retirement in 2008 at the age of 60, initially in Bristol and then in Manchester.

Although he started his career working in a research capacity, after gaining his PhD for work on non-bacterial gastroenteritis, Keith morphed into a diagnostic virologist ending up with consultant status with the Central Manchester NHS Foundation Trust. A major area of his work was in the diagnosis and epidemiology of hepatitis B and C and other blood borne infections, and he played a significant public health role in the early years of the HIV pandemic in Manchester. Over time, Keith’s brief expanded and for the last 10 years he was as much as an epidemiologist as a diagnostician, as well as introducing proper quality control measures into the diagnostic laboratories in Manchester.

Keith joined Rotary in 1987, serving as club president for the first time in 1993 and, after various district roles, as the Centennial District Governor in 2004-05.  He is currently RI polio eradication coordinator for Zone 20.