New director for European disease control centre
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Dr Marc Sprenger is to take over as director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) from 1 May. Dr Sprenger, who has headed the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment since 2003, is a medical microbiologist with a degree in medicine from the University of Maastricht. His PhD was on the epidemiology of influenza; one of the main tasks of the ECDC over the past year or so has been tracking the spread of pandemic flu. The centre's previous director, Zsuzsanna Jakab, left in February this year to become regional director for Europe at the World Health Organization.