Khadija Jamaloodien is Chief Director: Health Products Procurement in the National Department of Health, a position she has held since February 2023. In this role, she provides strategic leadership and oversight of functions supporting the establishment of the Office of Health Products Procurement in preparation for the implementation of National Health Insurance (NHI).

Prior to this, Khadija served as Director: Affordable Medicines from August 2014, where she led work to strengthen governance, procurement and supply systems to support the sustained availability of, and equitable access to, essential medicines.

A pharmacist by training, she holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Epidemiology and has 27 years of experience in the National Department of Health. For more than a decade, she led South Africa’s Essential Drugs Programme, overseeing evidence-based processes for the selection of medicines included in the Standard Treatment Guidelines and Essential Medicines List.

Her work has focused on strengthening health product procurement and supply systems, improving medicine availability and advancing more effective, equitable and sustainable approaches to health product management in the public health system.