Dr. Joseph Perriëns enjoyed a long and distinguished career with the World Health Organization (WHO), serving as senior expert in various roles addressing communicable diseases and health system strengthening. He was a coordinator of the Capacity Building for HIV/AIDS Department at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, responsible for strategic and operational planning for HIV in the health sector, normative guidance for HIV program management, oversight of the Integrated Management of Adult and Adolescent Illness (IMAI) unit and focal point duties for health systems strengthening.

Joseph held various posts within the WHO HIV/AIDS Department. He was the main anchor for AIDS treatment and access to AIDS medicines. Serving in director and coordinator roles, he negotiated prices, supported treatment programs in over 30 countries, wrote WHO guidelines on the treatment of HIV infection, helped open the antiretroviral drugs market to generic suppliers and organized public accountability for their rational procurement and use. He further supported the Global Fund as a member of its Grant Approvals Committee.

Prior to that Joseph worked in WHO on AIDS clinical research, the Belgian Development Cooperation and the Institute for Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Belgium.  His activities with ITM in Zaire included the role of deputy director of the Provincial AIDS control program, Shaba province. In South America, he also practiced and lectured on internal medicine in Suriname and then headed the clinical research unit of the first major AIDS research project in Africa – Project SIDA. Before working with WHO, he worked at UNAIDS overseeing UNAIDS Drug Access Initiative and later the Accelerating Access Initiative.

Dr. Perriëns holds an MD (Belgium) and is board certified in Internal Medicine (Belgium). He obtained his Ph.D. at the State University of Ghent, and studied public health and tropical medicine at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. He lives in Geneva, Switzerland.