Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (RIVM)

Contact person

Titia Kortbeek, medical microbiologist, MD (supervisor EUPHEM) +31652098602

Kim Benschop, molecular virologist, PhD (co-supervisor EUPHEM) +31654630852

Description of the institute

The National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM):

• promotes public health and consumer safety;
• helps to protect the quality of the environment;
• generates, collects, analyses and disseminates knowledge and information from various sources, both national and international.

This knowledge supports:

• policy-makers; 
• researchers;
• regulatory authorities;
• the general public.

Each year, RIVM produces numerous reports and publications on all aspects of public health, nutrition and food, health care, disaster management, nature and the environment.

The RIVM has three domains with different focus:

• infectious diseases,
• chronic diseases,
• environmental health.

The mission of the RIVM - Centre for Infectious Disease Control (RIVM-CIb) is to identify, prevent, control and manage infectious diseases and associated risks in order to maintain and promote public health in the Netherlands.

The RIVM CIb focuses on supporting and coordinating infectious disease control efforts at both national and international level. This is possible through ongoing surveillance and research of endemic infections, and alertness towards any potential large-scale outbreak or an outbreak of a disease which is not endemic in the Netherlands. The work complements and supports that of local and regional health authorities.

The RIVM-CIb:

• coordinates development of multidisciplinary guidelines on infectious disease control;
• conducts and participates in research;
• advises government and professionals;
• promotes expertise, quality and uniformity within the discipline of infectious disease control.
• makes clear and reliable information available to professionals and the general public;
• promotes effective international cooperation.

The EUPHEM fellows are hosted in the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research, Diagnostics and Screening (IDS), which is part of the Centre for Infectious Disease Control (CIb). IDS carries out:

• microbiological research,
• specific patient and epidemiological diagnostics of infectious diseases;
• laboratory analyses on human infectious diseases.

Patient diagnostics covers specialised diagnostics for which facilities are not always available in other laboratories. Epidemiological diagnostics are carried out in the event of an outbreak of a notifiable infectious disease, antibiotic resistant microorganisms and other pathogenic microorganisms that are a potential risk to human health.

This information enables laboratory surveillance to gain insight into trends in pathogens circulating in the human population. The centre supports other laboratories in the Netherlands in the control and prevention of infectious diseases, for example, by developing rapid diagnostic methods for microorganisms. Applied research and pathogen surveillance are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the National Immunisation Programme.

The centre organises and manages the national network of diagnostic reference laboratories and has reference tasks many different pathogens including measles, rubella, polio, tuberculosis, enteral viruses and foodborne pathogens. The centre’s knowledge and information is used to support Community Health Services and the national government.

Research at IDS is mainly focused on developing, optimizing and implementing innovative laboratory tests (diagnostics, and typing) to improve public health. Whole Genome Sequencing, a state of the art laboratory process that determines the complete DNA sequence of a micro-organism’s genome is introduced in several microbiological processes such as gastro-intestinal outbreaks, enterovirus and polio surveillance. Other topics cover vaccine effectiveness of the National immunization programme such as flu, HPV and involvement in measles, rubella and mumps outbreaks.

The EUPHEM fellows at IDS work in close collaboration with project leaders in other centres that are part of the CIb :

• Centre for Epidemiology and Surveillance of Infectious Diseases (EPI),
• Centre for National Coordination of Infectious Diseases Control (LCI),
• Centre for Immunology and Vaccinology (IIV), and
• Centre for Zoonoses and Environmental Microbiology (Z&O).

EPI acts as a training location for the European (EU) and the Member State (MS) track of the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET). There is a close collaboration with the EPIET programme.

The main public health topics of CIb are:

• Healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial resistance
• Gastrointestinal and foodborne infections
• Zoonosis
• Sexually transmitted infections including HPV
• Respiratory infections including tuberculosis and flu
• Vaccine preventable diseases (bacterial and viral)
• Bacterial, viral, and parasitological infections
• Emerging and high impact pathogen diagnostics
• Pandemic Preparedness

The core public health functions are:

• Surveillance of microbiological infections including vaccine preventable diseases
• Surveillance of antimicrobial resistant microorganisms
• Investigation and control of communicable disease.
• Public health microbiological research
• Teaching and training in public health microbiology

The RIVM hosts several WHO collaborative centres for e.g. antimicrobial resistance epidemiology and surveillance of small pox. IDS works closely together with medical microbiology laboratories in and outside the Netherlands.

Training Opportunities

During the two-year training at the IDS there are sufficient opportunities to meet all EUPHEM training objectives. The trainee can be involved in all major activities of the departments, and there are opportunities for international missions and collaboration with national institutes.

The training will be organized in close collaboration with Z&O, IIV, LCI and EPI and in close collaboration with EPIET fellows. Training programs are tailored based on the requirements in the EUPHEM core competencies, previous experience and personal interests and the possibilities within the CIb.

Supervision

The EUPHEM fellow will be supervised by the main EUPHEM supervisor (Dr Titia Kortbeek) and co-supervisor (Dr Kim Benschop, PhD) for the period of his/her training. For specific tasks and assignments, the fellow will be supervised by appropriate senior scientists/consultants.

Language requirements

Within the centres communication in English is possible with all colleagues. However, in order to be actively involved in field investigations and to communicate with the public health services, it is highly recommended to learn to read and speak Dutch. Nearly all fellows manage to do so to a certain degree.

Training history

EUPHEM fellows trained at  RIVM:

• Sabine Dittrich, cohort 1, 2008
• Giovanna Jaramillo-Gutierrez, cohort 3, 2010
• Rita de Sousa, cohort 5, 2012
• Zsófia Iglói, cohort 9, 2016
• Kamelia Stanoeva, cohort 12, 2019
• Maggie Simões, cohort 14, 2021

Number of EUPHEM fellows currently in training at RIVM: one

EUPHEM alumni working at RIVM: Kamelia Stanoeva.

The RIVM also hosts EPIET fellows (both MS-track and EU-track).

The working field of the different departments are listed below:

Emerging and Endemic Viruses (EEV)

The laboratory for Emerging and Endemic Viruses is involved in research projects for respiratory and intestinal virus infections and emerging infections that are a potential threat for public health.

Laboratory Response Covid (LRC) 

The Laboratory Response Covid is a new department that was set up during the Corona pandemic. The department focuses on SARS-CoV-2 research like pathogen surveillance, outbreak investigation, optimalisation and validation of methods in close collaboration with other departments like EEV.

Virology of the vaccin preventable diseases (VVP)

The laboratory virology of the vaccin preventable diseases is involved in research for all viruses that are part of the Dutch national immunisation program.

Bacterial Surveillance and Respons (BSR)  

The laboratory Bacterial Surveillance and Response is involved in characterising and typing of bacteria and surveillance and mapping of bacteria in the Netherlands, including Antimicrobial resistance.

Bacterial and Parasitological Diagnostics (BPD)

The department  Bacterial and Parasitological Diagnostics is involved in research, pathogen surveillance and diagnostics of parasitic and bacterial infections from a public health perspective, including (re)emerging bacteria and parasites, fungi and bacteria that can pose  a potential bio-terrorist threat.

The methods that are used in the different laboratories are numerous and include both classical methods like culture and serological assays, and state of the art molecular techniques like Whole genome sequencing (both Illumina and MinIon).