Marie joined ITM  in 1984 to work on  sexually transmitted infections and HIV, first in Nairobi, Kenya and in Kinshasa, DRC (Project SIDA) and later in Côte d’Ivoire ( Project Retro-CI ).

She did numerous short term missions to Africa and Asia,  focusing on better understanding of the HIV epidemic as well as designing  and evaluating interventions to address the epidemic.

Marie Laga and her team contributed significantly  to HIV prevention science in the areas of  sexual transmission and its co-factors, prevention programs for vulnerable groups such as female sex workers, youth and men who have sex with men, evaluation of female controlled methods and linkages of sexual and reproductive health. In recent years, Marie Laga has become a leading expert in HIV prevention, advocating for intensifying HIV prevention worldwide.

She provides policy support and technical assistance in the areas of strengthening HIV prevention for numerous international and local organisations.

Born
August 9, 1939 in Steinbach, Germany

Education:

MA in literature, California State University Fresno, 1972,
Readings in public health and epidemiology under the guidance of the late Professor Frederick Dunn and Professor Donald Heyneman, University of California, San Francisco, 1972,
PhD in medical geography, University of California, Davis, 1977.

Positions held:

Research Associate, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, 1972-now,
Research Associate, Institute of Pathobiology, Addis Ababa University, 1972-1976,
Assistant Professor, Department of International Health, University of California, San Francisco, 1978,
Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Addis Ababa University, 1983-1991,
Visiting Research Professor, Department of Public Health and Nursing, Federal University, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 1996-2008,

Consultancies:

WHO: Sri Lanka on population movements in epidemiology,
Ministry of Health, Kenya, Project on schistosomiasis transmission, 1985-1987,
Ministry of Health, Cairo, Egypt, SRP Project on schistosomiasis epidemiology, 1990-1999.

Assistant professor at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) and researcher at Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt, in Lima, Peru. MD from UPCH, MPH at the  Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium and PhD in Health Sciences at the University of Ghent. I have experience conducting epidemiological and operational research on TB in Peru.

Dr. Placide Mbala Kingebeni is a Doctor of Medicine and Associate Professor in virology at the University of Kinshasa. He is also the head of Epidemiology Department and the viral hemorrhagic fever laboratory at the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He has more than 10 years of experience in the surveillance and diagnostic of emerging zoonotic diseases such as hemorrhagic viral fevers and monkeypox. He has a long-standing collaboration with the Institute of Tropical Medicine of Antwerp where he obtained a master degree in science of public health four years ago. He is actively involved in the response to COVID-19 and Ebola outbreaks in the DRC led by Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe. He is one of the co-authors in the recent publication “Van Damme W, et al. The COVID-19 pandemic: diverse contexts; different epidemics—how and why? BMJ Global Health 2020;5:e003098. (doi:10.1136/ bmjgh-2020-003098)”.

Professor Erika Vlieghe is an Infectious Diseases clinician with professional experience within and outside Belgium (UK, Uganda, Ecuador, Cambodia). She studied medicine at the Leuven Catholic University, followed by a Postgraduate course in Tropical Diseases at the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) and a specialization in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Leuven Catholic University.

From 2004 to 2017 she has been working as a senior staff member and researcher at the ITM. Since 2017 she is heading the Department of General Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at the University Hospital of Antwerp (UZA); she teaches capita selecta of tropical medicine and infectious diseases at various undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Antwerp and the ITM.

Over the past few years she has been involved in research and capacity building in the field of antibiotic resistance in low and middle income countries; she obtained a Phd in this field in 2014.

From October 2014 – October 2015 Erika Vlieghe was temporarily appointed 'National Ebola-coördinator' in Belgium. Within this function she has worked in close collaboration with the national health authorities and many other partners to prepare the country for possible Ebola-infections.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis she has been involved in several advisory bodies on the management of the crisis: the Scientific comité advising the federal MoH, Celeval, the GEES and the COVID-commissariat.

I am a veterinarian with postgraduate training in epidemiology (MSc & PhD) and GIS (MSc); expertise in epidemiological, clinical and implementation studies in tropical diseases, in particular visceral leishmaniasis in the Indian subcontinent and human African trypanosomiasis in sub-Saharan Africa. In the last 15 years I have been working to develop and evaluate new tools to prevent, diagnose and treat tropical diseases around the world. I have worked in various capacities at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Belgium, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the United Kingdom and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) in Spain. I am currently a Senior Scientific Officer for the Neglected Tropical Diseases program at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND)

Epco Hasker graduated as a medical doctor in Rotterdam (Netherlands) in 1989. He then came to the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) to do the postgraduate course on tropical medicine. Over a 15-year period he worked in leprosy and tuberculosis control in Africa (Nigeria), Asia (Afghanistan/Pakistan) and in the former Soviet Union (Ukraine and Central Asia). In between (2001/2002) he came back to ITM to obtain a MSc in Disease Control. In 2008 he came back to Belgium and joined the Department of Public Health of ITM, working mostly on visceral leishmaniasis, human African trypanosomiasis and leprosy. He has also been teaching epidemiology and statistics to international MPH students. In 2010 he obtained a PhD based on his research on control of infectious disease in low resource settings. In 2013 he registered as an epidemiologist. In June 2020 Epco Hasker was appointed professor of common tropical infectious diseases at ITM.

François Chappuis is professor of humanitarian medicine at the University of Geneva. He currently heads the division of tropical and humanitarian medicine (DTHM) and the department of primary care at the Geneva University Hospitals. The DTHM focuses on prevention and care of travellers, including expatriates working abroad for international NGOs, and on development and research projects in low and middle income countries.

He is a medical doctor specialized in internal medicine and travel & tropical medicine. He holds a master in clinical tropical medicine from the University of Mahidol (Thailand), and a PhD in medical sciences from the University of Antwerp (Belgium).

His teaching and research focus on neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), with a particular interest on epidemiological and clinical aspects of sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, kala-azar and snakebite.

Dr Suman Rijal since 2014 is Director, Regional Office in India, at Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, a non-profit Research and Development organisation. He undertook his medical training from Calcutta Medical College Kolkata, and Internal Medicine in United Kingdom. He was awarded a PhD in 2006 from University of Gent, Belgium.

Has been actively working in the field of neglected tropical diseases particularly kala-azar since last 2 decades. Lead and coordinated several collaborative clinical and operational research projects in epidemiology, validation of diagnostic tests, clinical trials etc. in kala-azar. Worked earlier as Professor of Internal Medicine and Head of the Tropical and Infectious Diseases Centre at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Nepal from 1997 to 2017. He is a member of several national and international committees including the WHO Expert Panel on Parasitic Diseases (Leishmaniasis), Geneva and Regional Technical Advisory Group on VL Elimination at SEARO/WHO.

Temmy is a medical doctor graduated from the University of Indonesia (2003), with a Master degree in Public Health Disease Control (2010) from the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM). She was one of the Marie Curie fellows in the Euroleish network (2015), completing her PhD in Translational Medicine and International Health from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Barcelona in 2019. Prior to the academic path, she had worked in the field for >13 years with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in various contexts (Indonesia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and India). She had previously received fellowship as a Public Health Professional Fellow in WHO Regional Office for South East Asia (2012-2013) and most recently at the Global Health Center, Graduate Institute of Geneva (2020). Her research area is on leishmaniasis, neglected diseases, innovation and access to medicines.

Marianne van der Sande heads the Department of Public Health at ITM since July 2017. She is professor of Public Health Epidemiology, and part of the Global Health group at Utrecht University. Before joining ITM, she was for 10 years State Epidemiologist of the Netherlands, heading the Centre of Epidemiology and Surveillance of Infectious Diseases at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). During this period, she was member of the scientific advisory committee of the European Centre of Disease Control, and co-director of the WHO-Collaborating Centre for AMR Surveillance and Epidemiology. Prior to that, she worked at MRC The Gambia as medical epidemiologist, first in the Non-Communicable Disease Programme, later in the Virology Programme. After graduation as MD, she worked with MSF-Holland in Darfur-Sudan and Soroti-Uganda, with Memisa in Sichili-Zambia, and obtained an MPH at Johns Hopkins. She has published over 220 peer-reviewed articles.

Emeritus Professor , Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH)
Director "AvH” Tropical Medicine Institute, UPCH (1995-2017)
Head, DTD, Hospital Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Perú 1995-2017
Director, The Gorgas Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine,UPCH, Lima, Perú 1996-2017
President, PanAmerican Infectious Diseases Association (1991-1993)
President, International Society for Infectious Diseases (1998-2000)
Member, Steering Committee of Zoonosis Diseases (WHO) (2009-2010)
Member, Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Neglected Diseases (STAGNTD) (WHO) (2011-2015)
Member, STAG on Yellow fever (WHO) (2011-2013)
Member, Institute of Medicine’s Forum on Microbial Threats – IOM-USA (2004-2015)
Honorary Member Academia Nacional de Medicina de Perú and México

Emmanuel Bottieau: medical doctor specialized in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. Since 2012 professor of Tropical Medicine at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium where he is head of the Unit of Tropical Diseases and director of the postgraduate course Tropical Medicine and Clinical Decision-Making. His main research topics are the integrated management of febrile illness, Neglected Tropical Diseases and zoonotic infections both in the tropics and in travellers. He currently chairs the task force on therapeutic guidelines for COVID-19 in Belgium and participates to various advisory groups on public health management of the pandemic in Belgium, with a focus on testing strategies.

Dr. Guido Vanham is a medical doctor (1980), specialized in internal medicine (1987) and PhD (1994).  He has been working on HIV immune-virology at ITM for 30 years until 2019 and was teaching tropical and infectious diseases at the Universities of Antwerp and Brussels.

Since the “lockdown”, he focused on various aspects of COVID-19, writing a scientific blog and having an advisory role in the response to the pandemic.

Dr. Patty J. García, is a Professor at the School of Public Health at Cayetano Heredia University (UPCH) in Lima-Peru and member of the US National Academy of Medicine. She is the former Minister of Health of Peru, former Dean of the School of Public Health at UPCH, and former Chief of the Peruvian National Institute of Health (INS). She is recognized as a leader in Global Health. She is affiliate Professor of the Department of Global Health, at University of Washington and of the School of Public Health at Tulane University. She is actively involved in research and training in Global health, Reproductive health, STI/HIV, HPV and medical informatics. During the pandemic she is leading clinical trials as SOLIDARITY, Convalescent plasma and ivermectin use, and chairs the advising governmental committee on innovations to fight the pandemic.

Richard Njouom has a PhD and a Habilitation to Direct Research (HDR) in Virology from the University of Toulouse III in France obtained in 2003 and 2013, respectively. He currently holds the rank of Research Director and serves as Head of the Virology Department at the Centre Pasteur of Cameroon. He also have teaching activities acting as a Temporary Associate Professor in Cameroon.

Njouom’s research focused on general and molecular epidemiology of hepatitis and respiratory viruses in Central Africa. He has published about 150 peer-reviewed papers.

Njouom is member of the WHO Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Advisory Group.

Rodrigo Henríquez, family doctor, graduated from ITM’s Short Course in Clinical Research and Evidence Based-Medicine in 2009. Since 2014 works as assistant professor and researcher in the One Health Research Group at Universidad de Las Américas in Quito, Ecuador.

Topic: Cost-containment for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis in resource-limited settings.

Dr Alison Wright is a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at the Royal Free teaching hospital in London. She is the immediate past Vice-President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and is currently a National Specialty Advisor for Obstetrics to NHS England and NHS Improvement. Dr Wright is the UK representative for FIGO (International Federation of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians) Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health committee. Her clinical interests include childbirth trauma, urogynaecology, pelvic floor dysfunction, infections in pregnancy and high-risk pregnancies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Wright has published a global systematic review of clinical outcomes in the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and has contributed to national and international guidelines in the management of COVID-19 in pregnancy and childbirth. She also set up a local WhatsApp group to support frontline clinicians, which became global!

Bosede Afolabi is a Professor of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, trained in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. She is a maternal medicine expert and her doctoral thesis from the University of Nottingham was on cardiovascular aspects of pregnancy in sickle cell disease. She is lead and co-investigator of several national and international research grants, has published 66 peer-reviewed papers and was featured on CNN African voices for her work in sickle cell pregnancy and maternal health. Bosede is the current Head of Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, one of the oldest and most renowned medical schools in Nigeria. She is a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gyanecologists, UK and of the Nigerian postgraduate colleges – West African College of Surgeons and the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria. She has mentored more than 20 young obstetricians and gynaecologists some from medical student level, all of whom are successful consultants with 8 in academic posts. Professor Afolabi sits on the Board of several hospitals, is a PhD examiner and supervisor and is an Assistant Editor of the Journal of the West African College of Surgeons. She has co-authored 7 peer-reviewed publications on obstetric care and COVID-19 in the last few months with local and international collaborators, and given several presentations on the same topic.

Dr Carla Andreucci, MD, MSc, PhD is an obstetrician working at the Department of Medicine, Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil (UFSCar). Currently she is an Assistant Professor, and teaches Obstetrics for medicine students within Brazilian public maternities. Her research interests are reproductive health and maternal morbidity, with focus in quality of life, pregnancy complications, and mode of delivery issues.

Emma Radovich is a Research Fellow and PhD candidate in Maternal Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (UK). Her current work is on the process evaluation of a cluster randomised trial in India and Nepal of a digital health intervention to improve the quality of antenatal care. Her research interests also include using population-based and health facility-based data to examine reproductive care coverage and quality and obstetric referral systems.

Dr Lenka Benova is an Associate Professor Maternal and Reproductive Health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium. Her training is in quantitative social sciences and she works on maternal and reproductive health in low-resource settings, with a particular focus on the provision of intrapartum/postpartum care in health facilities. She is the principal investigator of the MATCO study (Global Study of Maternal Health Provision during the COVID-19 pandemic). Previously, she led a project analysing the contribution of the private sector to reproductive and maternal health in low- and middle-income countries from secondary data Demographic and Health Surveys. Dr Benova has experience in mentoring and supervising Masters and doctoral degree researchers. Prior to her academic career, Dr Benova worked in management positions in the private sector (USA) and with MSF.

Dr Luther-King Fasehun is an Epidemiology Doctoral Researcher at Temple University in the United States. A physician, Dr Fasehun earned his medical degree from the University of Lagos, on a Federal Government of Nigeria Scholarship. He earned his Master’s degree in International Healthcare Management, Economics and Policy from the SDA Bocconi in Italy, sub-specializing in Global Health and Development. He is interested in reproductive and perinatal epidemiology, as well as the intersections of health systems strengthening and improved quality of care in global maternal and child health. With well over a decade’s experience, Dr Fasehun served as the Nigeria Country Director of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, and he was the technical lead, on behalf of the WHO and UNICEF, for the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) consultation in Nigeria. He was the first Nigerian to serve as a Policy Leaders Fellow at the European University Institute.

Dr. Niveen Abu-Rmeileh is a Full Professor of Statistical Epidemiology at Birzeit University. Dr. Abu-Rmeileh holds a BSc in Medical Technology, a Master in Public Health and a PhD in Statistical Epidemiology from University of Glasgow. She teaches a variety of courses on quantitative research methods, health statistics and population studies. Dr. Abu-Rmeileh has worked in national, regional and international research. Her research interest is focused on the three broad categories: Non-Communicable Diseases (with special focus on diabetes, cancer and tobacco smoking), Reproductive Health, and Information Systems for Health. Dr. Abu-Rmeileh is currently building a research team in reproductive health mainly focusing on implementation research and systematic review approaches. Current research includes Understanding existing reproductive health digital health initiatives and policies; Strengthening adolescents’ health information system and Validation of WHO tool developed to assess how women are treated during childbirth.

Phillip Wanduru is a research fellow at the Makerere University Centre of Excellence for Maternal Newborn and Child Health in Kampala, Uganda. Phillip holds a Master's in Public Health, and an undergraduate degree in clinical nursing. He is currently a PhD candidate under a double degree program at Makerere University and Karolinska Institutet (Sweden) under the ALERT study. At the Center of Excellence, Phillip has been involved in the coordination of various research projects including MANeSCALE, Preterm Birth Initiative, The Kampala slum project among others. All these projects aimed at addressing critical health care supply and demand gaps for pregnant mothers and their newborns. Phillip’s research interests are in the field of maternal and newborn care with a particular interest in quality of care.

Raffaella Ravinetto, a pharmacist by training, is a senior researcher and policy advisor at the ITM Public Health Department, in charge of a portfolio of research, networking and advocacy on medicines in low- and middle-income. She previously worked in both commercial and non-commercial clinical research, and in various humanitarian programs. She is the chairperson of the ITM Institutional Review Board and of MSF Ethics Review Board. She was president of the Italian branch of MSF (2007-2011).

Dr Séverine Caluwaerts is an obstetrician-gynaecologist from Belgium who has been working with Medecins Sans Frontieres since 2008 in different contexts (Sierra Leone, Burundi, DRC, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Niger, Central-African Republic). Since 2011, she is one of the gynaecology referents. Her special interests include pregnancy and infectious diseases, and cervical cancer screening and treatment in low-resource settings. She also continues to work as a clinician at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, Belgium in the HIV/STI clinic. She acquired a diploma in Tropical Medicine from ITM, Antwerp and a Masters in Public Health from Liverpool University.

Dr Sunil S. Vernekar is working as Associate Professor of Physiology in J N Medical College, Belgaum, Karnataka, India. He is a medical doctor with specialization in Physiology & Diabetology, & also holds a Master’s degree in Hospital management and diploma in Epidemiology and Yoga. He is a medical academic researcher with vast experience in implementation of community and hospital based research protocols of Women’s and Children’s health research unit of J N Medical College Belgaum especially in maternal & perinatal health. He is a member of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research in Maternal & Perinatal Health (WHO-CC IND 156) at J N Medical College. He is presently involved as Project Coordinator for “Low-birthweight Infant Feeding Exploration (LIFE)” project in collaboration with Ariadne Labs funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, & “WHO ACTION Trials” sponsored by World Health Organization.

Dr Thérèse Delvaux is a medical doctor trained in obstetrics/ gynecology, then public health (MPH, PhD), with over 25 years of experience in the field of international sexual and reproductive health. She works as senior researcher and scientific expert at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM), Antwerp. Her research focus topics are sexual and reproductive health programmes, quality maternity care, family planning, adolescents, safe abortion services and prevention of STI /HIV.

Dr Vanita Suri is a professor and head of the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at PGIMER, Chandigarh in India. Her interest and expertise lie in high risk obstetrics, gynecological oncology, infertility and assistive reproductive technology. Aside from her roles as program director of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research in Human Reproduction, she has led and co-led more than 40 research projects, and published more than 200 scientific papers. She is the president of the Chandigarh Chapter of Association of Gynaecologic Oncologists of India (AGOI-CC), and the Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecological Society of Northern India (FOGSI – chapter). Professor Suri is involved in two COVID-19 related studies, namely the National Registry on COVID-19 infection among pregnant women and their neonates (ICMR Project) and the Standardizing of data collection and protocol for improving the Quality of evidence on clinical characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 and Pregnancy, a WHO project.

Dr Léonard Heyerdahl is a post-doctoral researcher in the Anthropology & Ecology of Disease Emergence Unit at Institut Pasteur, Paris, with 10 years of experience in health systems strengthening and operational research on the prevention and control of epidemics. From 2010 to 2016 he ran the operations of the African Cholera Surveillance Network for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 10 African countries. He has conducted multiple anthropological studies with high-risk groups on preventive and curative practices; on perceptions of cholera and Ebola; alternative uses of antibiotics, and the acceptability of vaccinations in epidemic contexts in Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, République Démocratique du Congo, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Dr. Heyerdahl has extensive doctoral training in social media monitoring and big data analytics, and in the current COVID-19 context, he is conducting this type of analysis for the French Red Cross, for the CORAF project in West Africa, as well as for the European-funded RECOVER study.

Tina Purnat is a Technical Officer for Digital Health Technologies in the newly established Department of Digital Health and Innovation at WHO. She works on frameworks for assessment and evaluation of AI and other digital health technologies in health, health information exchange and interoperability, and related aspects of health data governance for sharing, research and use in policy-making.
As part of the WHO COVID-19 response, she works in WHO infodemic response: collaborations to develop tools, methods and insights to promote evidence-based interventions to bring about behavior change, and to curb the harmful effects of mis- and disinformation affecting communities and individuals.

Bart Criel is a medical doctor by training. He obtained an MSc in Community Health in Developing Countries at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1989 and his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1998. He is currently Professor at the Department of Public Health in the Health Systems & Health Policy research group. His main areas of work are the study of health care delivery systems and systems of social protection in health in low-and middle income countries. In the period 2001-2008 he chaired the Public Centre of Social Welfare in his municipality.

Chuy Kalombola Didier est un médecin généraliste et titulaire d’un master en santé publique de l’IMT Anvers 2014-15. Il est Médecin Directeur du Centre de Santé d’Apprentissage et de Recherche Tshamilemba (CSART), à la ligne de front des soins du système de santé dans la ville de Lubumbashi, un centre développé par le partenariat entre l’Ecole de Santé Publique de l’Université de Lubumbashi, la Division provinciale de la Santé du Haut Katanga et l’Institut de Médecine Tropicale (IMT) d’Anvers (Belgique). Il est candidat au PhD et effectue ses recherches doctorales sur le stewardship des systèmes de santé dans le milieu urbain, en République Démocratique du Congo (RDC).

Dorothy Lall is a PhD scholar at Institute of Public Health (IPH) in Bengaluru, India. Her work has been in improving health care delivery systems for chronic conditions at primary care in India. A medical doctor by training, she specialized in community medicine and has 8 years of experience in public health in India. Currently she leads the education domain at IPH and is involved in capacity building initiatives for public health professionals in India. She also leads an evaluation of the implementation of midwifery policy in a southern state of India. 

Title of the talk:  Mirror, Mirror on the wall! Reflections on COVID 19 in India. 

Elena Vargas Palacios is a Nicaraguan migrant in Mexico. She is a medical doctor by training and has obtained a Master in Public Health at the ITM in Antwerp. Currently she is working for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontieres, MSF) in the Northern border cities of Matamoros and Reynosa in Mexico and in Central America (Honduras-Guatemala). 

Title of her talk:  Coping with failing: migrant care between the Americas. 

Fatoumata Binta BAH (guinéenne/Conakry) est médecin généraliste et communautaire, formatrice en Promotion de la santé, et est une personne ressource de secteur de la santé communautaire et de la société civile de son pays. Membre de plusieurs réseaux et plateformes du pays et de la sous-région, elle est engagée dans la promotion des droits et bonnes pratiques des gouvernances en santé. Responsable de la Recherche, Formation et du Genre au sein d’une ONG nationale Fraternité Médicale Guinée (FMG) spécialisée dans l’offre de soins de santé primaires.

Hilde Kieboom is founder-chairperson of the Sant'Egidio in the Benelux and currently vice-president of the organization. Sant'Egidio is active worldwide with 70,000 volunteers in 70 countries in fighting poverty, promoting integration and dialogue between people and peoples of different origins, cultures and religions, and making peace in conflict and war zones. In Africa, Sant'Egidio gave birth to Dream health centres to fight AIDS and prevent corona. Hilde Kieboom was made a baroness by King Albert II in 2003, and received an honorary doctorate from Utrecht University in 2005. She is a much sought-after speaker on social and societal themes at home and abroad.

Title of the talk: How the Corona pandemic exposes the ambiguity with which Western societies treat their most vulnerable citizens

Janneke Ronse, born in 1982, obtained a Master in Nursing Science in 2008 (University of Ghent). After graduation, she worked as a scientific researcher for 3 years, in the domain of qualitative research. She then worked as a nurse and diabetes educator in primary care for more than ten years. Since 2017, she is president of Medicine for the People, a Belgian non-profit organization. The organization provides primary health care (medical, nursing, psychosocial,…) to 25000 patients in 11 medical practices all over the country, with 220 staff members and volunteers. Medicine for the People supports both staff and patients in their fight for better health and a healthier society.

Title of the talk: The right to health in a healthy society during the COVID-19 crisis.

Prosper Tumusiime is a medical doctor with postgraduate training in public health and Epidemiology. He has had extensive experience in the area of health systems and services, working with Governments and partners at national and international level with focus on improving health service delivery to country populations.

For the last 2 years, he has worked at Director level overseeing the Departments of Health Systems and Services Development and Universal Health Coverage & Lifecycle at the WHO Regional Office for Africa. Prior to this, he was a Regional Advisor for District Health Systems and for Service Delivery Systems, together for 18 years.

Charlotte Scheerens, PhD, is a health sociologist and post-doctoral researcher affiliated with Ghent University, focusing on the intersection between environmental (lung) health and health equity. She currently works on the nexus between climate change, migration, health and health care in sub-Saharan Africa, exploring interdisciplinary and international capacity building solutions for adverse health outcomes. She also assesses the impact of climate change-induced temperature differences and air pollution on lung health in COPD at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and co-develops policy guidance for monitoring equity in human resources for health with the WHO Technical Working Group 5: equity of Global Health Workforce Network Data and Evidence Hub.

Title of the talk: Tackling adverse health effects of climate change and migration through intersectoral capacity building in Sub-Saharan Africa from the perspective of family physicians: important insights for covid-19

Kathleen Van Brempt (°1969) is a Belgian social-democratic politician. She is Member of the European Parliament for the Group of Socialists and Democrats (S&D). Van Brempt is the S&D’s spokesperson on Internationale Trade.

Kathleen Van Brempt served as a State Secretary for Labour organisation and Welfare in the workplace in the Belgian federal government and Minister for Mobility, Social Economy and Equality in the Flemish government. In the 2009 European elections, Van Brempt was elected as Member of the European Parliament. She was re-elected in the 2014 and 2019 elections.

Van Brempt focuses her parliamentary work mainly on sustainability, social policy and environmental issues. During the 2014-19 term she was Vice-President of her parliamentary group (S&D), responsible for sustainability. In 2016, Van Brempt served as chair of the Inquiry Committee on Emission Measurements in the automotive sector (EMIS committee) after the outbreak of the Dieselgate-scandal.

During the 2019-2024 parliamentary term Van Brempt is a member of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade (INTA) and the S&D spokesperson on Trade.

Prashanth N Srinivas is a medical doctor with experience in working in primary care in southern India. He obtained a Master in Public Health from ITM, Antwerp (HSMP 2007-08) and subsequently a PhD in public health (via ITM) from the Université Catholique de Louvain. He leads the Health Equity Cluster at the Institute of Public Health (IPH), Bengaluru (India) with broad interests in studying social determinants of health and health inequities across various axes of inequities in India. Since 2014, he lives and works at a public health research field station in BRT Tiger Reserve in southern India. Through a fellowship from the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance, he has set up collaborations to examine health inequities in indigenous communities in multiple remote forested locations in southern, central and northeast India.

Clara Affun-Adegbulu is a nurse and health systems researcher based at the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp in Belgium. Her main areas of interest are Ecohealth, urban health, health systems and equity, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected settings, and governance and gender as determinants of health. Clara is also a political science PhD student working on women’s representation and de-democratisation. She is an active participant in debates on decolonisation and the postcolonial critique.

Title of the talk : Change or plus ça change…

Gorik Ooms is a human rights lawyer, policy advisor with HERWIN – a federation of social circular enterprises - and a Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Adjunct Professor at the Law Faculty of Georgetown University, and Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Ghent University.

Title of the talk: Towards a social and circular economy; will COVID-19 make a difference?

Dr Christine Kirunga Tashobya, a Ugandan national, is a Health Systems Specialist with experience in health policy, health financing, and health systems management accumulated over three decades working in Uganda and other health systems in the Africa region. Dr Tashobya has undertaken assignments under the auspices of national governments, multilateral and bilateral agencies and research institutions. Dr Tashobya is currently a Lecturer/Research Fellow at Makerere University School of Public Health and a visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp. Her current teaching and research interests relate to subnational health system management and performance assessment; stakeholder engagement for Universal Health Coverage; and health financing in the context of Low and Middle Income Countries. Dr Tashobya has a Ph D in Public Health (Catholic University of Louvain and Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp), M Sc Health Policy Planning and Financing (London Scholl of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), MA Demography and MB Ch B (Makerere University Kampala).

Upendra Bhojani is a dentist by training. He has a Doctoral degree in Public Health (University of Ghent). He serves as Director at the Institute of Public Health (IPH) Bengaluru, India, where he leads the Cluster on Chronic Health Conditions & Public Policy. He currently holds a Department of Biotechnology/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Fellowship. His research interests include chronic conditions, political economy of health, and urban health.

Charlotte Gryseels is a post-doctoral researcher at the Medical Anthropology Unit (MAU) of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. She obtained a PhD in the Social and Behavioural Sciences from the University of Amsterdam in 2017. She has conducted extensive qualitative and mixed-methods research across the Asia Pacific over the past eight years, focusing mainly on the acceptability and uptake of malaria medication and preventive measures, and on social factors impacting on disease transmission dynamics. In the past two years she has additionally conducted research in West-Africa on the utilization of reproductive health services. Now she is increasingly exploring collaborative partnerships to advance the MAU’s research on the uptake of vaccination services.

Après une maîtrise de sociologie et anthropologie à l’Université d’Abomey-Calavi au Bénin, N’koué Emmanuel Sambiéni a fait une formation professionnelle au Centre Africain d’Études Supérieures en Gestion (CESAG) de Dakar au Sénégal et obtient en 2003 le Diplôme Supérieur de Gestion des Services de Santé (DSGS), option programmes de santé. Dans la même année, il obtient aussi le Diplôme d’Études Approfondies (DEA) en sociologie et anthropologie à l’Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar. En septembre 2007, il fait un Master 2 recherches en éducation, spécialité éducation et promotion de la santé, gestion des risques sanitaires à l’Université de Besançon en France. En janvier 2012, il a soutenu sa thèse de doctorat en sciences politiques et sociales, spécialité sociologie et anthropologie à l’Université de Liège en Belgique. A partir de juin 2014, il a été admis comme chercheur postdoctorant au Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de l’Université de Montréal au Canada. Depuis octobre 2012, N’koué Emmanuel Sambiéni est enseignant-chercheur à l’Université de Parakou, au département de sociologie et anthropologie. Il anime plusieurs cours : anthropologie de la maladie, Santé et développement au Sud, Méthodes de recherches en sciences sociales, sociologie des populations, etc. Il est chercheur au Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherches sur les Dynamiques Sociales et le Développement Local (LASDEL) dont il est le directeur délégué au Bénin.

Wim Van Damme is Professor in public health and health policy at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium. He has extensive field experience with the response to epidemics as part of the overall functioning of health systems (measles, cholera, meningitis, beri-beri, malaria and HIV/AIDS in Cambodia, Sudan and Guinea, with MSF). He developed this scientifically in his PhD on refugee assistance in Guinea, and in various publications. Earlier in 2020, he was 4 months in Kinshasa, as ITM senior scientist and collaborated with INRB, Kinshasa, where prof JJ Muyembe is leading the “Riposte corona” in DRC. He recently authored “Van Damme W, et al. The COVID-19 pandemic: diverse contexts; different epidemics—how and why? BMJ Global Health 2020;5:e003098. (doi:10.1136/ bmjgh-2020-003098)” in collaboration with 25 co-authors involved in the response to Covid-19 around the globe.

Claudia Nieto-Sanchez is a postdoctoral Researcher in the Medical Anthropology Unit (MAU), Eco-Health Group, Public Health Department of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. Doctor in Communication and Public Health and MA in Communication for Development Studies. During her doctoral training, Claudia worked with the Infectious and Tropical Disease Institute (ITDI) at Ohio University and the Center for Research in Health in Latin America (CISeAL) at Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador in designing and implementing a Chagas disease (CD) prevention program for rural communities in Southern Ecuador. Her research was focused in understanding the conditions under which health promotion efforts based on housing improvement can lead to sustainable prevention of CD. Her experience in communication, development and public health includes projects in Colombia, Ecuador, India, Gambia, Uganda and South Africa.

Sakib Burza is a practicing clinician who completed a MSc in public health in developing countries in 2009, and worked on diagnostic algorithms for NTDs with ITM in 2014. He completed my PhD on clinical management visceral leishmaniasis at the Institute of Tropical Medicine/University of Antwerp under Prof Boelaert. 
From February 2016 he has been working as Medical Advisor, Asia for Medecins Sans Frontieres. Sakib holds an honourary associate professor role at the LSHTM.
He has long standing interests in the clinical aspects of leishmaniasis, and also NTDs in general. Sakib has also conducted research in severe acute malnutrition and am interested in melioidosis and early detection of sepsis.

Dr. Remco van de Pas is a public health doctor and a global health researcher. He has a position as senior research fellow global health policy at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp and is a lecturer in Global health at the Department of Health Ethics and Society, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University.

His teaching and research focuses on global health governance, its political-economy and foreign policy with a special attention on health workforce development and migration, health system strengthening, social protection and health financing, health security, globalization, climate change and their impacts on health equity.

Tine Verdonck graduated as a medical doctor from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 1997 and joined the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, Belgium in 1998. From 2000-2011, she worked as a representative of the ITM at the Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt (IMTAvH) in Lima, Peru. During this extended period abroad, she was involved in research as a fellow, PhD student, and in a postdoctoral position. Tine obtained a PhD degree from the University of Antwerp. Her thesis was about the epidemiology and clinical aspects of human T-lymphotropic virus 1 (HTLV-1) infection, a poorly known albeit frequent infection in Peru. Other topics she worked on include tuberculosis, HIV, and leishmaniasis. In 2012, Tine joined the unit of Epidemiology and Control of Tropical Diseases in the Department of Public Health. She is also member of the ecohealth team. She is editor for PLoS One and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. In 2020, Tine obtained a Masters of statistics from the University of Hasselt. Current research topics are neglected tropical diseases and SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19. From a methods perspective, the emphasis is on measuring the frequency of infections in heterogeneous populations, and on evidence synthesis.

Professor Heidi Larson, Anthropologist, Director of The Vaccine Confidence Project™, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK Professor Heidi Larson is Director of The Vaccine Confidence Project™ at the London School of Hygiene& Tropical Medicine where she is a Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science. She previously headed Global Immunisation Communication at UNICEF, chaired GAVI’s Advocacy Task Force, and served on the WHO SAGE Working Group on vaccine hesitancy. Her research focuses on the analysis of social and political factors that can affect uptake of health interventions and influence policies. Her particular interest is on risk and rumor management from the clinical trial stage to the market stage and on building public trust. She is the author of the book, STUCK: How Vaccine Rumors Start and Why They Don’t Go Away, Oxford University Press 2020.

Jan de Zutter (1962) is a writer and press officer for MEP Kathleen Van Brempt in the European parliament. In the past he has worked as a journalist for the Belgian newspaper De Morgen and as political advisor for several social-democratic ministers in the Flemish government.