Peter Piot

Dr. Peter Piot (born 1949 in Leuven, Belgium) is Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the UN specialized agency UNAIDS. In 2004, he was awarded the Vlerick Award.

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After he qualified as a Doctor of Medicine at the University of Ghent (Belgium) in 1974, he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976. In 1980 Peter Piot received a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Antwerp (Belgium). He was a professor of microbiology, and of public health at the Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine, in Antwerp, and the Universities of Nairobi, Brussels, and Lausanne. From 1991 to 1994 Dr. Piot was president of the International AIDS Society. 1992 he became Assistant Director of the World Health Organization's Global Programme on HIV/AIDS. On 12 December 1994 Peter Piot was appointed Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and Assistant-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Dr. Piot was knighted as a Baron by King Albert II of Belgium, in 1995. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, UK.

“ The latest global AIDS figures give us reason for concern and for some hope. The number of new infections rose to 4.3 million this year, at the same time 2.9 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses. Multi-drug and extremely drug resistant tuberculosis highlight new challenges in our collective response.”

Peter Piot, World AIDS Day 2006 (read more)

“ On current trends, AIDS will kill tens of millions of people over the next 20 years. But this need not happen. We know prevention works. We know that HIV treatment and care work. The global AIDS response is poised to enter a new era: where leadership and commitment are at long last matched with the resources needed to get on with the job.”

Peter Piot, 2006

Further reading

• Pattyn S, van der Groen G, Courteille G, Jacob W, Piot P., Isolation of Marburg-like virus from a case of haemorrhagic fever in Zaire, Lancet. 1977 Mar 12;1(8011):573-4.
• Piot P, Bartos M, Ghys PD, Walker N, Schwartlander B., The global impact of HIV/AIDS, Nature. 2001 Apr 19;410(6831):968-73.