Philippe De Wals
Dr. Philippe De Wals is a Belgian-Canadian epidemiologist and public health specialist based in Quebec City, Quebec. He is notable in the COVID-19 pandemic due to his role in approving COVID-19 vaccines in Canada as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).
In 1990, De Wals was awarded the Jean Van Beneden Prize in recognition of his excellent work in the public health field, and in 2005, he was elected to the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium.
Education
De Wals gained his Medical Degree and a Doctorate in Public Health in his home country of Belgium, at the Louvain Catholic University.
Career and Affiliations
De Wals is a medical advisor to the Institut national de santé publique du Québec. He is a working group member for Vaccines Together.1)
EUROCAT
Between 1980 and 2000 he worked as an epidemiologist for EUROCAT, a European network of population-based registries for the epidemiological surveillance of congenital anomalies.
University of Sherbrooke
In 1990, De Wals moved to Canada and became the Head of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Sherbrooke. He is a researcher at the Sherbrooke University Hospital Centre.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In 1997, he was appointed visiting Professor at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the United States of America.
Laval University
De Wals is a professor at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Laval University.2)
Quebec University Hospital
De Wals is a member of the research center at Quebec University Hospital.
Quebec Heart and Lung Institute
In 2011, he was appointed as Scientific Director of the Evaluation Platform on Obesity Prevention at the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute.
Public Health Agency of Canada
De Wals is a member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), where he participated in the approval of COVID-19 vaccines in Canada.3)
Research
De Wals has received research grants and travel reimbursement from GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, and Sanofi. Specifically, he benefited from unrestricted research grants from GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Sanofi, for whom he has also served as scientific advisor.4) 5)
Additional funding has come from the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services.6)
In 2021, De Wals participated in the The Pneumococcal Serotype Replacement and Distribution Estimation (PSERENADE) Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the World Health Organization Pneumococcal Vaccines Technical Coordination Project.7)
1)
Philippe De Wals. Vaccines Together. Retrieved April 21, 2022, from https://www.vaccinestogether.org/philippe_de_wals
2)
Philippe De Wals | Researchers. Evaluation Platform on Obesity Prevention. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://archive.ph/o3K8K
3)
National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI): Membership and representation. (2020, December 18). Wayback Machine; Government of Canada. https://web.archive.org/web/20201218222110/https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/immunization/national-advisory-committee-on-immunization-naci/naci-membership-representation.html
4)
De Wals, P. (2019). Epidemiology and Control of Meningococcal Disease in Canada: A Long, Complex, and Unfinished Story. Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology, 2019, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/8901847
5)
De Wals, P. (2015, October 10). Economic Analysis of Pneumococcal Vaccination for Elderly Adults in Quebec: Forecasting Invasive Pneumococcal Disease (IPD) Rates of and Serotype Distribution. Confex; Infectious Diseases Society of America. https://archive.ph/gxSeC
6)
Cléophat, J.-E., Le Meur, J.-B., Proulx, J.-F., & De Wals, P. (2014). Uptake of pneumococcal vaccines in the Nordic region of Nunavik, province of Quebec, Canada. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 105(4), e268–e272. https://doi.org/10.17269/cjph.105.4315
7)
Deloria Knoll, M., Bennett, J., Garcia Quesada, M., Kagucia, E., Peterson, M., Feikin, D., Cohen, A., Hetrich, M., Yang, Y., Sinkevitch, J., Ampofo, K., Aukes, L., Bacci, S., Bigogo, G., Brandileone, M.-C., Bruce, M., Camilli, R., Castilla, J., Chan, G., & Chanto Chacón, G. (2021). Global Landscape Review of Serotype-Specific Invasive Pneumococcal Disease Surveillance among Countries Using PCV10/13: The Pneumococcal Serotype Replacement and Distribution Estimation (PSERENADE) Project. Microorganisms, 9(4), 742. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9040742