Assoc Prof Dr Murallitharan Munisamy

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Murallitharan Munisamy is a Public Health Physician from Malaysia. He trained as a Medical Officer under a Government of Malaysia scholarship. He subsequently completed a Masters in Community Health Sciences at the National University of Malaysia and read for a PhD in Public Health at the College of Public Health Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand under an ASEAN Economic Community scholarship. Dr Murallitharan was awarded the prestigious Chevening Scholarship in 2015 by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and completed a term as a Fellow in Health Policy, Planning and Financing at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics and Political Science, two of the top world’s top universities. In addition to working in multiple capacities with the Ministry of Health Malaysia and multiple organisations including the World Health Organisation, Dr Murallitharan was also previously an award-winning journalist for the New Straits Times, one of Malaysia’s leading English newspapers. Dr Murallitharan is also passionate about and deeply involved with healthcare services for marginalized and underprivileged groups and works closely with many service organisations. Dr Murallitharan is currently the Managing Director of the National Cancer Society of Malaysia. He was selected one of the world’s Young Cancer Leaders for 2019/2020 by the Union for International Cancer Control, the world’s largest grouping of organisations working in cancer. In 2022 he was awarded World’s Best Cancer CEO by the UICC, the first Malaysian to be awarded this honour. Dr Murallitharan is also a health columnist with the leading national online daily Free Malaysia Today.