Maria Van Kerkhove is an American infectious disease epidemiologist. With a background in high-threat pathogens, Van Kerkhove specializes in emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and is based in the Health Emergencies Program at the World Health Organization (WHO). She is the technical lead of COVID-19 response and the head of emerging diseases and zoonosis unit at WHO.

While at Imperial College, Van Kerkhove served as a senior research fellow in the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London and a Technical Consultant for the Global Capacities, Alert and Response Cluster of the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr. Van Kerkhove remains a technical consultant for WHO.

Dr. Van Kerkhove served as the liaison between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling. In this role, she developed projects to support WHO activities and policy decision making for influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), yellow fever, Ebola and other emerging diseases. She and Centre staff continue to provide technical assistance to WHO (including to the Global Influenza Programme, the Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases Department, Initiative for Vaccine Research department and the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network) through the interpretation of available global data, in collaboration with WHO’s member states, regional and country offices and internationally renowned scientists. The centre provides technical support in the areas of influenza, MERS-CoV, polio, malaria, yellow fever, cholera, hepatitis, HIV and meningitis.

Dr. Van Kerkhove is also a member of the WHO Task Force for MERS-CoV. Her work involves providing WHO with epidemiologic and statistical support for the analysis and interpretation of MERS-CoV data for risk assessments, web-based summaries and communications; the development of epidemiologic and serologic investigation protocols for MERS-CoV; and other publications on topics related MERS-CoV.

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