Research expertise

Wim Van Bortel is a medical entomologist, PhD, with more than 25 years of experience in research on vectors and vector-borne diseases in Europe, Africa and Asia. He obtained his Master degree in Biology at the University of Antwerp Belgium in 1990 after which he specialised in Medical Entomology at the Institut Pasteur Paris. In 2002, he obtained his PhD at the University of Antwerp Belgium. From 2010 till 2016 he was Senior Expert vector-borne diseases at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control where he was Deputy Head of ECDC’s Emerging and Vector-borne Diseases Programme. Since 2017 he works at the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp (ITM) as senior Researcher in the Unit of Entomology and in the Outbreak Research Team.

His research focuses on disentangling the role of arthropod vectors in transmission systems in order to improve vector-borne diseases prevention and control in a public health context. As member of the ITM outbreak Research team he aims to enhance the understanding of what drives the transmission and spread of outbreak-prone diseases, as well as to assess different outbreak prevention and control strategies.

Currently Wim Van Bortel is involved in following projects and activities:

• Research collaboration on malaria outbreaks in Burundian Highlands. Collaboration with MSF in the context of the Outbreak Research Team;
• ZCL Morocco: A systemic insecticide to control zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in Errachidia province - Southeastern Morocco: an intervention trial for an innovative vector control tool where he leads the entomology work package;
• MOnitoring Outbreaks for Disease surveillance in a data science context (MOOD) where he leads WP1 and is member of the executive board;
• Monitoring of exotic Aedes mosquitoes in Belgium (MEMO+) and the mosquito surveillance platform;
• Bio-ecological studies on Aedes mosquitoes in DRC in the context of ITM’s capacity building with partners;
• European network for medical and veterinary entomology (VectorNet) where he leads the work package “Scientific advice”.

Teaching expertise

Wim Van Bortel is lecturer in the courses Tropical Medicine and International Health, Tropical Medicine for bachelors in nursing and midwifery, and Médecine Tropicale pour bachelors en soins infirmiers et sages-femmes at the Institute of Tropical Medicine. He is also lecturer of the course Ecology, Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Diseases at the department of Biomedical Sciences of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical, Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences at the University of Antwerp.