Catharina Van Weezenbeek

Kitty van Weezenbeek (MD, PhD, MPH) brings over 35 years of international public health experience in over 30 countries worldwide. During this period, she covered all aspects of TB control, with a focus on laboratory strengthening, surveillance, operational research and drug-resistant TB (DR-TB). She completed her PhD on DR-TB in 1998 and has authored over 50 publications. She was coordinator of the MDR-TB team at WHO Geneva and was TB Regional Advisor with the WHO Western Pacific Region. Before she took her current position as Director of Surveillance, Prevention and Control of AMR with WHO, she was the Executive Director of KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, a large international NGO with offices worldwide.  During this period, she broadened the scope of KNCV to include AMR and was a member of the steering committee of the Dutch public-private ‘AMR Global’ movement.

In her years with KNCV, Kitty was DR-TB consultant to many high burden countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, South East Asia and the Western Pacific Region, with a focus on the comprehensive programmatic response to DR-TB at all levels of the health system. During that period, she was member of the WHO TB Strategic Technical Advisory Group (STAG) and held chair positions of the ‘Global Green Light Committee for access to second-line drugs’, and the Global Working Group on DR-TB.  In these positions she actively promoted activities to address the global shortage of drugs to treat DR-TB and promote R&D in this area. She contributed to many WHO guidelines, ranging from technical topics such as prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance of MDR-TB, to related subjects such as ethical aspects of TB care and stigma reduction.

The five voluntary and consecutive job shifts between KNCV and WHO have enriched her career and personal development. Though, equally significant were her first years practicing as a medical doctor with patients and health worker colleagues. This experience— how patients, nurses and doctors think, feel and act—has not only been Kitty’s source of inspiration, but also an important motivation to link scientific guidance with country realities.