Dr Enrique Pérez-Gutiérrez
Food Safety Officer, Pan-American Health Organization, Area of Health Surveillance and Disease Management (based on Rio de Janeiro Brazil)
Dr Perez was born in Costa Rica and received his DVM from the National University of Costa Rica, a Master in Preventive Medicine from the Federal University of Minas Gerais of Brazil, a Master in Veterinary Preventive Medicine from the University of California in Davis and his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. In 1981 Dr Perez was hired by the National University in Costa Rica as assistant professor, obtained tenure position as associate professor in 1986 and became a full Professor in 1995. Dr Perez was also responsible for academic coordination of a Master course in Epidemiology for the human health sector of Costa Rica and team leader of the Population Medicine Research program. In 1999, Dr Perez was hired by the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Cooperation (IICA), as an agricultural health and food safety specialist providing technical cooperation in modernization of agricultural health systems. In November 2001, Dr Perez entered at the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) responsible for providing technical cooperation in the development of risk-based, sustainable integrated food safety systems; promoting international coordination between health and agriculture sectors; and promoting and carrying out research in food safety and foodborne diseases. He is actively involved in WHO-GFN network and PulseNet Latin America and the Caribbean network. He is also involved in FERG (Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiological Reference Group) from WHO and is actively involved in foodborne burden of disease studies, risk assessment and antimicrobial resistance studies along the Americas.