Senior Epidemiologist, Center of Infectious Disease Control RIVM (NL), EIP Policy Focus Group 2020
Mirjam Knol works as a senior epidemiologist on vaccine-preventable diseases at the Center of infectious Disease Control of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in the Netherlands. She is responsible for the surveillance of meningococcal disease, pneumococcal disease and Haemophilus influenza disease.
She conducts and supervises epidemiological studies on vaccine-preventable diseases, e.g. impact and effectiveness studies, and she is involved in the design and data analysis of clinical vaccine studies conducted at the RIVM. On a regular basis, she provides scientific input to the Dutch Health Council who advises the Ministry of Health about the National Immunization Program. Furthermore, she contributes to European projects on the effects of pneumococcal vaccination (IMOVE+, SpIDnet) and supervises/has supervised numerous PhD students, MSc students and EPIET fellows (ECDC training program for intervention epidemiology).
She has been a member of the expert committee recommending about meningococcal ACWY vaccination because of the increase in serogroup W meningococcal disease in the Netherlands and she has been involved in the implementation of meningococcalACWY vaccination for adolescents. Specific tasks around the vaccination campaign are 1) evaluation of impact and effectiveness of the campaign, 2) communication on the vaccination program to professionals, nationally and internationally, and to the public, 3)coordination of several studies, e.g. on vaccination coverage, the burden of disease, carriage and immunogenicity, which are set up around the vaccination campaign and 4) providing input for (cost-effectiveness) modelling of meningococcal ACWY vaccination. Mirjam Knol has a strong medical and epidemiological background by training and experience. She published more than 40 papers on vaccine-preventable diseases, mainly on the meningococcal and pneumococcal disease, and more than 30 papers on epidemiological and statistical methods.