Dr Arnaud Trébucq
Dr Hans L Rieder
Dr Arnaud Trébucq of France and Dr Hans L Rieder of Switzerland, two of The Union’s long-standing and highly regarded tuberculosis experts, are transitioning to new roles and positions this spring.
Over the last 23 years, Dr Arnaud Trébucq has been a highly respected voice in the fight against TB. He has served The Union in a number of capacities, including as the nexus between the French government and Union activities in francophone countries. He has provided comprehensive technical assistance on TB to many of these countries, including Benin, Cameroon, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has trained generations of TB leaders through his annual course, Cours International sur la Lutte contre la Tuberculosis.
More recently, he has been spearheading a major cohort study in nine francophone countries testing a shortened regimen for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Although he is stepping down from his full-time position this month, he will carry on with this project until the study is completed.
Dr Hans L Rieder has provided his extensive expertise on the epidemiology of TB to The Union since 1993. Regarded as one of the leading figures in his field, Rieder has not only benefitted The Union team, but also the countless TB programme managers, clinicians and researchers he has trained – and the thousands of patients they served.
In addition to leading the faculty of The Union’s International TB Courses, he offered courses on research capacity strengthening, emphasising quality-assured data collection and analysis using non-proprietary software in collaboration with the EpiData Association in Denmark.
Reider will continue to teach in academia, where he has served on the faculty of various European universities for many years. He is currently affiliated with the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Preventive Medicine Institute at the Medical School of the University of Zurich, Switzerland; and a Visiting Professor at the Leibniz-Center for Medicine and Bioscience in Borstel, Germany.
A widely published author, Reider helped disseminate his discoveries and best practices to those working on TB across the world. Both he and Trébucq were contributing authors to numerous influential Union guides, including the 2013 Guidelines for the clinical and operational management of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and 2010 6th edition of Management of tuberculosis: a guide to the essentials of good clinical practice.
“Arnaud and Hans have dedicated many years to The Union and to alleviating the suffering of people with TB around the world,” said José Luis Castro, Executive Director. “I know the whole Union community joins me in thanking them for their outstanding service as they now take on new challenges.”