Zoonotic Avian Influenza
Dr. Francois Meslin

About Dr. Francois Meslin

Francois Xavier Meslin, DVM
World Health Organization (WHO)
Coordinator for Strategy Development
& Monitoring of Zoonoses,
Foodborne Diseases and Kinetoplastidae (ZFK)
Department of Control, Prevention
and Eradication (CPE)
Communicable Disease Cluster (CDS)
Geneva, Switzerland

François-Xavier Meslin is Doctor in Veterinary Medicine (from Lyon, France) who after a first experience in livestock development in Thailand specialized in tropical veterinary medicine, veterinary public health and field epidemiology. After spending 2 years in West Africa in another animal production and health project he joined the World Heath Organization as manager of an intercountry project for rabies and supervisor of the Zoonoses Control Programme in the Mediterranean area.

Dr Meslin occupied various positions in the WHO in Veterinary Public Health and Zoonoses prevention and control. Dr Meslin coordinated WHO scientific activities for the promotion of wildlife rabies control in Europe and dog rabies in the developing world by oral vaccination. He also led the WHO activities on BSE and other TSE from 1989 to 1997 as well as those on xenogenic infections and xenotransplantation during the late nineties, early 2000. Dr Meslin is focal point in WHO for coordination with other international Organizations such as FAO and the OIE in the international surveillance of and response to emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases. He is lead editor of various books, for example Laboratory Techniques in Rabies, WHO, 1996 and Dogs, Zoonoses and Public Health, CABI, 2000. He has published a number of articles and guidelines on rabies, parasitic and bacterial zoonoses, and risk factors in zoonoses emergence and risk communication.

He is currently heading the WHO team in charge of "Strategy development and monitoring of zoonoses, foodborne diseases, cholera and other epidemic enteric diseases, leishmaniasis and African trypanosomiasis" in the Department "Communicable Diseases Control, Prevention and Eradication" in Geneva. He was the convener of the recent WHO/FAO/OIE International Consultation on Emerging Zoonoses held in Geneva in May 2004.