JCU professor takes over top role

The ACTM is responsible for the development of tropical medicine in Australia and New Zealand. The ACTM also hosts Faculties of Travel Medicine and Expedition and Wilderness Medicine. It is the pre-eminent professional organisation in tropical medicine in the region.

Professor Leggat, who has worked in tropical medicine for more than 30 years, is Professor and Co-Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Vector-borne and Neglected Tropical Diseases in the College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences at JCU.

He said tropical medicine deals with health problems that occur uniquely, are more widespread, or prove more difficult to control in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.

“It is both an auspicious and challenging time to be President”, Professor Leggat said. "The College celebrates its 30th anniversary next year, but the College and its members also find themselves confronting and dealing with a global COVID-19 pandemic.”

Professor Leggat said that there were natural synergies between the missions of the ACTM and JCU and he has been a strong supporter of the UN-sanctioned International Day of the Tropics

The ACTM was established on 29 May 1991 at a meeting in Townsville, and the secretariat is based at the Australian Medical Association Headquarters in Brisbane. The College includes health professionals from various fields such as medicine, nursing, medical sciences and veterinary sciences from Australia, New Zealand and more than 30 countries.

Professor Leggat was elected as a Foundation Fellow of the ACTM in 1991 and has previously served four terms as President. He was admitted as a Member of the Order of Australia in 2013 for significant contributions to medicine, in particular tropical and travel medicine.

Professor Leggat is a highly respected medical educator. He helped to found the popular Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and Diploma of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene courses at JCU in 1992, which have emerged as key parts of one of the largest postgraduate public health programs in Australia.

Further information on the ACTM is available at http://www.tropmed.org

Images of Professor Leggat available here.