Prof. Nissaf Bouafif ép Ben Alaya received her medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine of Tunis. She specialized in preventive medicine, public health, epidemiology and biostatistics. She began her professional career at the Pasteur Institute of Tunis as a specialist in preventive medicine working on surveillance of leishmaniasis and viral hepatitis in Tunisia. She then worked as an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Claude Bernard in Lyon, France, working on nosocomial infection surveillance.

In Tunisia, in 2010, she became an associate professor of preventive medicine and epidemiology at the Faculty of Medicine of Tunis and was recruited as the deputy director of the Observatory of New and Emerging Diseases. She became Director of Health Surveillance in 2013 and General Director of the Observatory of New and Emerging Diseases since July 2015. From July 2017 to May 2018, she served as Interim Director of Primary Healthcare Direction. She has been the head of the preventive medicine and epidemiology department at the Faculty of Medicine of Tunis (2014-2021) and the coordinator of the master’s program in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Tunis Manar (2004-2021).

Since 2011, she has coordinated field epidemiology training at the national and regional levels and is the director of the Tunisian Field Epidemiology Training Program implemented in Tunisia since 2018 and president of training Center Forum of the MediPIET. Mediterranean Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training.

She became full professor in preventive medicine and epidemiology in February 2016. She is working on prevention, preparedness and rapid response to infectious disease with epidemic and pandemic potential as well as the implementation of the Tunisian Early Warning and Rapid Response System to emerging and reemerging diseases.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she coordinated the national response, nominated coordinator and spokesperson of the covid-19 scientific committee at the Ministry of Health and member of the Scientific Advisory Group of Expert at the presidency of the government.