Dr. Monique Léchenne, PhD, med. vet.

Monique Léchenne, PhD, med. vet ., is a veterinary epidemiologist and One Health expert. She is working as project associate at the Health System Support unit of the Swiss Centre for International Health and the Human and Animal Health Unit of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Swiss TPH. She holds a federal veterinary diploma obtained in 2009 at the Vetsuisse faculty in Bern and a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Basel obtained in 2015. During her veterinary studies, she gained experience in pathology and wildlife disease research. Her thesis was conducted in N’Djamena (Chad) and spanned over many aspects of rabies control including surveillance, dog mass vaccination, transmission dynamics and public awareness. After the PhD, she continued as a postdoc at Swiss TPH, coordinating a large-scale study to estimate rabies burden and vaccine demand in West and Central Africa. From January 2018 to December 2019, she was working as a postdoc at the Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter to study the ecology of domestic dogs in Chad to investigate the occurrence of Guinea Worm infections in this specie. Currently she is based in Chad and working for different project of Swiss TPH in Central Africa with a One Health focus. Her research interests are the improvement of human health and animal wellbeing through improved understanding of the dynamics between animals, their owners, veterinary services and zoonotic diseases and the strengthening surveillance systems for zoonotic diseases in Africa through a One Health approach based on new technologies and facilitated interdisciplinary communication.