Jaap van Dissel


Jaap Tamino van Dissel is a Dutch virologist and infectiologist.
Van Dissel is director of the of the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. He is also professor at the Leiden University with specialization Internal Medicine, in particular infectious diseases.

Life

Van Dissel was born on 29 April 1957 in Amsterdam. He obtained his doctorate at Leiden University in 1987 with a thesis titled: "Divergent bactericidal activity of resident and activated macrophages for Salmonella typhimurium and Listeria monocytogenes". He became a professor of internal medicine, in particular infectious diseases, at Leiden University in 2000. In 2013 he succeeded as head of the.

Corona crisis

In 2020, Van Dissel made frequent headlines as an infectious disease control expert and as chairman of the Outbreak Management Team following the COVID-19 pandemic - the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands - SARS-CoV-2 causing the contagious respiratory disease COVID-19. Partly on his advice, measures were taken by the Rutte III cabinet for the public health to prevent the spread of this virus disease, including the “intelligent lockdown”. As a speaker at several government press conferences, he explained the background to these measures.