rhuits

About: Ralph Huits is a Dutch adult infectious disease physician at the Sacro Cuore Don Calabria hospital in Negrar di Valpolicella, Italy. Dr. Huits is a Co-Principal Investigator (Research lead) of GeoSentinel, the international emerging infectious diseases network of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has extensive experience working as an ID consultant and researcher in various settings in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Dr. Huits holds a PhD from the KU Leuven (Belgium) on emerging arbovirus infections. His research focuses on the (molecular) epidemiology of vector-borne diseases, and the clinical presentation, diagnosis, and management of infectious diseases in travellers and endemic populations. He (co)authored over 80 peer reviewed publications. Dr. Huits is leading several international multicentre studies, including GeoSentinel’s SUMMIT (SUrveillance of Molecular epidemiology of Malaria in Travelers) that aims to build a platform for ‘real time’ reporting on the genomic epidemiology of travel-related malaria. He is also interested climate-based early warning systems for outbreaks, and in applying data science methods to improve outbreak detection. Dr. Huits is a member of the WHO SAGE Working Group on Chikungunya Vaccines, and a councilor on the American Committee on Clinical Tropical Medicine and Travelers’ Health (ASTMH Clinical Group). He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Travel Medicine, Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, and Open Forum Infectious Diseases. He is a regular reviewer for the major journals in infectious diseases, and a Scientific Program Committee member for ASTMH and for the Conference of the ISTM.