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Bea Vuylsteke

Dr Bea Vuylsteke, MD, PhD is a research fellow and lecturer at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium. Bea was trained as a physician at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where she received her M.D. in 1984. After her studies, she worked for Médecins sans Frontières in Mali, Chad, Mozambique and Ethiopia. In 1992, she joined the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, where she worked as STI advisor for FHI’s AIDSCAP program in different countries, including Tanzania, Rwanda and Brazil. She obtained a PhD at the University of Ghent, in Belgium, in 2003. From 1999 to 2010 she was based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where she provided technical assistance and leadership for the planning, implementation and evaluation of ITM’s HIV prevention and research programmes among high risk groups, including sex workers and Men who have Sex with Men (MSM). Bea is currently the principal investigator of a large PrEP feasibility study among MSM in Belgium and she is member of the WHO STI guideline development group.