Projects

Vaccination does not only provide direct protection against infectious diseases but also contributes to the protection of an entire population when a large proportion of the population is vaccinated and herd immunity is reached. This way vulnerable individuals, namely those who cannot be vaccinated and those who do not respond to vaccination, can also be protected.

My PhD project includes different projects which are related to the ...

In this research, the Flemish government calls for the development of a method that can help to make 'correct' decisions in the field of vaccination, not only based on purely scientific advice on 'the epidemiology of, each vaccineable infectious disease separately and therefore not in relation to vaccination options for other disorders ', but from a' broader scope a prioritization can be determined of the vaccinations that should be ...

Despite great achievements in medicine, infectious diseases are still a leading cause of children morbidity and mortality. Up until now, most vaccines have been empirically generated without a true understanding of the precise immunologic mechanisms of action of successful vaccines. As we are now facing difficulties in developing new or more efficient vaccines, we need to understand the precise mechanisms underlying successful vaccination and ...

For many human infectious diseases, in particular for those caused by viruses for which no treatment is available, it is of utmost importance to have effective vaccines at hand. Prevention of suffering and death from infectious diseases by means of prophylactic vaccination is the most (cost-)effective public health intervention available today. However, for many pathogens no such vaccines exist. Many vaccines have features that impede their ...

Ethiopia has the largest livestock inventories among African countries. Recent reports showed that, 56.71 million heads of cattle, 29.33 million sheep, 29.11 million goats and 54.5 million chickens are found in Ethiopia ( Agricultural Sample Survey 2015/16). Even though the country is endowed with this wealth, it happens to be the corridor of many internationally important livestock disease among others foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) (Ethiopia ...

For my doctoral project, I will focus on the rotavirus genetic diversity and impact of mass vaccination in Belgium. Rotaviruses are the major causes of gastroenteritis worldwide and two oral, live-attenuated vaccines are part of national immunization schedules in Belgium. It is crucial to monitor the genotype distribution of the wild-type strains, as mass vaccination might induce selective pressure and novel rotavirus strains emerge and ...

This doctoral dissertation contributes to the modeling and measuring of the operational performance of a vaccine manufacturing supply chain. These models are part of a broader, overarching framework on stakeholder-based vaccine supply chain design. We show how the developed models in this doctoral dissertation are positioned in that framework. The overarching framework consists of five steps to generate and evaluate new (vaccine) supply chain ...

With more than 240 million people that are persistently infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV), chronic hepatitis B (CHB) remains the main and leading cause of liver cirrhosis and cancer. CHB is in fact a direct consequence of a failure of the adaptive immune system to eliminate HBV from the infected liver. Most potent state-of-the-art antiviral therapy can only suppress viral loads but will never cure chronic CHB. Cure of CHB may be ...

The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is responsible for approximately 20 million infections each year. Usually, the infections with HEV result in a self-limited, acute illness. However, HEV infections can lead to acute hepatitis, which may further develop into chronic hepatitis, especially in solid organ transplant recipients. Moreover, pregnant women are particularly at high risk of developing severe complications resulting from acute hepatitis with ...