Ikwo Oboho, M.D.

Ikwo Oboho, M.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center and a member of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine. She serves as Director of Infection Prevention and Control at the VA North Texas Health Care System, where she leads the monkeypox outbreak response. Her clinical interests include the management of HIV and opportunistic infections domestically and globally, prevention and control of health care-associated infections, and infectious diseases outbreak control and response.

Originally from Nigeria, Dr. Oboho holds a bachelor's degree in anthropology and human biology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She earned her medical degree at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennesee, and completed internal medicine residency training at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. She then received advanced training through an infectious diseases fellowship program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, while also completing a master's degree in clinical investigation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Oboho then transitioned to public health by entering the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) as a medical epidemiologist in the Influenza Division at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.

After completing her EIS fellowship, Dr. Oboho joined the Division of Global HIV and TB at the CDC and worked for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, focusing on increasing access to HIV treatment in sub-Saharan Africa, with emphasis on West and Central Africa, and diagnostics and therapeutics for the management of opportunistic infections among persons living with HIV with Advanced HIV Disease. She also supported various task force activities at the CDC during the COVID-19 pandemic. During her time at CDC, Dr. Oboho supported several outbreak responses, including the Middle East respiratory syndrome virus (MERS-CoV) infection linked to health facilities in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, novel avian influenza A(H5N1) outbreak in Cambodia, Ebola pandemic preparedness in Côte d’Ivoire, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Commander in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, Dr. Oboho has been an active-duty officer since 2013. In 2021, she earned the USPHS Commissioned Corps' Presidential Unit Citation honoring the highest level of performance of duty for protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also received the Hubert H. Humphrey Award for Service to America Award in 2022 for the Office of Refugee Resettlement mission in 2021.

Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in internal medicine and infectious diseases, she joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2022.

Dr. Oboho’s research interests include the management of HIV and related opportunistic infection risk factors for interruptions in HIV treatment and advanced HIV disease in sub-Saharan Africa, metabolic complications of HIV therapy, infectious diseases outbreak control and response, and the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections. Her investigations have resulted in 18 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Additionally, she has presented her findings at scientific conferences throughout the United States and internationally and collaborated with the World Health Organization for the 2017 guidelines for managing advanced HIV disease and rapid initiation of antiretroviral therapy.

Dr. Oboho is active in several professional societies, including the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the Association of Nigerian Physicians in America’s COVID-19 task force, and the USPHS Physician Professional Advisory Committee, which she serves as a member of the Mentoring and Career Development and Readiness subcommittees.

Personal Note

Dr. Oboho’s interests outside of medicine include cooking, running, spending time outdoors a,nd high-intensity interval training. She has intermediate proficiency in French.