Dr Renaud Piarroux is a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Sorbonne University, a researcher at the Pierre Louis Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health and head of department at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. He is a Knight of the Legion of Honour.
Microbiologist and clinician specialized in infectious and tropical diseases, he collaborated for a long time with Médecins du Monde in the Comoros, Afghanistan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo before specializing in the study of the dynamics of cholera epidemics, but also of plague and various parasitic diseases (malaria, leishmaniasis, echinococcosis).
In November 2010, at the request of the Haitian government and the French embassy, he effected an epidemiological investigation that revealed the responsibility of peacekeepers in importing cholera into Haiti and triggering the epidemic that spread throughout the country nine months after the January 2010 earthquake. Subsequently, he collaborated with UNICEF and the Haitian Ministry of Health to guide the control actions that led to the elimination of fléau in early 2019.
During the Covid-19 epidemic in Paris, he participated in the crisis unit of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris by providing the institution with epidemiological analyses of the situation and proposing the implementation of a control program based on the intervention of mobile teams (Covisan project) to prepare for the deconfinement in the best possible conditions.
Renaud Piarroux is the author of nearly 300 scientific studies published in international scientific journals on the study of epidemics, the transmission of infectious and parasitic diseases, and the improvement and evaluation of diagnostic methods in parasitology and medical mycology. He has also published three books for the general public ("Cholera Haiti 2010-2018: history of a disaster"
2019, CNRS Editions, "The Wave" 2020, CNRS Editions and "Why Pandemics?" Ricochet Editions. He is the author of a series of Podcasts entitled "Mécaniques des épidémies" diffusés by France Culture.