Roel Coutinho—Director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Control Netherlands

In 2005, Roel Coutinho became the first director of the Netherlands' new national coordination centre for infectious diseases. After graduating in medicine in 1972 from Amsterdam University, and a sojourn as a physician in tropical medicine in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, Coutinho returned to the Netherlands to specialise as a medical microbiologist. Coutinho joined the Municipal Health Service of Amsterdam in 1977 as the head of the Public Health Department, where in 1984 he completed a PhD on sexually transmitted diseases among men who have sex with men. He was one of the founders of the Amsterdam cohort studies. In 1989, Coutinho was appointed Professor in the Epidemiology and Prevention of Infectious Diseases at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam. In 2000 he became General Director of the Municipal Health Service of Amsterdam, a post he occupied until joining the RIVM (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) in 2005.