Dr. Mamel Quelapio, is an infectious disease specialist, who has been involved in the programmatic management of drug-resistant TB (PMDT) since 1999. Dr. Quelapio was the first TB clinic physician in the TDF private-public mix DOTS-Plus Clinic, the first Green Light Committee-approved PMDT site. Guided by Dr. Thelma Tupasi, she led a TDF team in TDF that expanded PMDT in the Philippines, collaborating closely with the National TB Program (NTP).
In 2011, as a full time Technical Officer of the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO), she served as focal point for DR-TB in the region, working closely with NTPs. Between 2016 and 2019, Dr. Quelapio was a senior technical staff member at the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, Netherlands where she assisted countries in adopting novel drugs and shorter DR- TB regimens under USAID’s Challenge TB project. From 2020 to 2022, she chaired the regional Green Light Committee for WPR and was a member of the Technical Advisory Group. In 2020- 2025, Dr. Quelapio coordinated the LIFT-TB (Leveraging Innovative and Faster treatment for TB) BPaL operational research in the Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam, through KNCV and TB Alliance, and continued to assist in the rapid scale up of the new regimen. Currently, she is a member of the WHO Guidelines Development Group and of the WHO TB Strategic and Advisory Group (STAG). As an independent consultant, she continues to serve as a technical resource to countries in the programmatic adoption of patient-centered approaches to TB care.
