Jim van Steenbergen,
head of LCI (Centre for Infectious Disease Control)
Dr. Jim van Steenbergen, (1950) is a medical doctor, trained in public health and epidemiology. After qualifying as MD, he worked as a clinician in the Netherlands and Zambia for several years. After his return from Zambia he was trained and worked as a community health physician at the Municipal Health Service in Utrecht. His work was mainly focussed on occupational health, infectious disease surveillance and control, public health, management and planning.
He obtained his doctorate in epidemiology with a dissertation on The Epidemiology and Control of Viral Hepatitis B and A in Countries of low Endemicity.
He developed a training for front line communicable disease control officers in the Netherlands and was its first teacher at the Netherlands School of Public Health from 1991 to 1995.
In 1995 he was appointed head of a new coordinating body for communicable disease control (LCI) in the Netherlands. In 2005 the LCI was integrated in the Centre for Infectious Disease Control (CIb) of the Dutch National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). The LCI is responsible for the daily practical control of and preparedness for infectious diseases. During the management of Jim van Steenbergen the Netherlands were confronted with an outbreak of legionnaires’ disease in 1999, measles and rubella epidemics in 1999 and 2002, avian influenza H7N7 in 2002, SARS in 2002, Q fever epidemics in 2007 and 2009 and the swine flu pandemic in 2009.
In addition Jim van Steenbergen is chairman of the Occupational Health and Infectious Diseases (WIZA) committee, and member of the committees Microbiology and Public Health (WOGIZ) and Infections and Immunizations in the Military Force (CDIM).
He was member of the editorial board of the Infectieziekten Bulletin, a Dutch magazine on infectious diseases, and is currently member of the editorial board of two other magazines on infectious diseases in the Netherlands: the Soa Aids Magazine and the Tijdschrift voor Infectieziekten. He was member of various advisory bodies: the National Health Council - advising the Ministry of Health on issues such as hepatitis C, bioterrorism and influenza vaccination, the National Hepatitis Centre (NHC) and the Sti Aids Netherlands organization