ITM’s Van Griensven and Thys awarded Dubois-Brigué Prize and Scholarship

Prof. Johan van Griensven received the Dubois-Brigué award on Saturday 9 September for his groundbreaking work on Ebola and the neglected disease of leishmaniasis in HIV patients. The prize is awarded once every three years and is intended to promote clinical and experimental research in tropical medicine. Séverine Thys received the Dubois-Brigué Scholarship to complete her doctoral research.

Albert Dubois was one of the inspirers of scientific tropical medicine and director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine from 1947 to 1958.

The prize that carries his name and that of his wife Simone Brigué, worth 12.500 euros, goes to Prof. Johan van Griensven for his proposal Clinical research in hard to reach contexts: from Leishmaniasis in HIV patients to Ebola. Prof. Van Griensven works in Ethiopia, among other places, to improve treatment of patients with a co-infection of HIV and the neglected tropical disease leishmaniasis. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa (2013-2016) he conducted an international clinical study in Guinea on the treatment of the Ebola virus with blood plasma from recovered patients.

The Foundation Doctor Albert Dubois also offers a scholarship to fund the final year of a doctoral thesis, including writing a thesis and publishing the thesis results. The 50.000 euro scholarship goes to ITM anthropologist Séverine Thys. It enables Thys to finalize her PhD on the perceptions of livestock owners about animal-to-human diseases transmission in the context of the One Health concept.