About
Medical entomologist, Assistant Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and head of the VCPEC-IPR in Bouaké.
- Positions
- Assistant ProfessorLondon School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Department of Disease Control, Malaria Centre
- Head of the centreVector Control Product Evaluation Centre, Institut Pierre Richet, Bouaké
- articles
- 126
- citations
- 7,195
- h-index
- 50
- countries
- 40
Biography
Raphaël N'Guessan is a medical entomologist. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Disease Control at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, a member of its Malaria Centre, and he leads the Vector Control Product Evaluation Centre of the Institut Pierre Richet in Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire.
After studying civil engineering, he joined the Institut Pierre Richet in Bouaké in 1993, first rearing mosquitoes, then running insecticide tests. In 2003 he moved to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the CREC in Cotonou, Benin, where he created a research laboratory on new vector control tools and trained technicians and young researchers. He earned a master's degree from the LSHTM in 2006 and a doctorate in medical entomology from Wageningen University in 2009, and represented the LSHTM in West Africa until 2015. From 2012 to 2018 he served on the WHOPES working group of the World Health Organization, and since 2014 on the Vector Control Working Group.
His work follows one question, what still protects people when mosquitoes adapt. He documented how pyrethroid resistance undermines nets and spraying in Benin, evaluated the first chlorfenapyr nets, and took part in the trial of the lethal house lure published in The Lancet. Back in Côte d'Ivoire in 2016, he created the VCPEC-IPR, inaugurated in 2019 and certified compliant with the OECD Principles of Good Laboratory Practice in 2023.
Today his research turns to epidemiological and community-level studies, to measure the public health value of the tools he helped develop, some already recommended by the World Health Organization, others about to be. He also advises the national malaria control programmes of Côte d'Ivoire and Benin on their vector control choices.
Education
- PhD in medical entomologyWageningen University2009
- MSc Control of Infectious DiseasesLondon School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine2006
- Civil engineeringENSTP, Yamoussoukro
Career
- 1993
First steps at Institut Pierre Richet
After a first training in civil engineering, he joins the Institut Pierre Richet in Bouaké as a laboratory assistant in charge of the insectary and mosquito rearing, then from 1998 to 2001 as the technician in charge of insecticide tests. First article in 1997.
- 2003
Benin with the LSHTM
Research assistant of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the CREC in Cotonou, Benin, where experimental huts and a laboratory are built for the evaluation of new vector control tools.
- 2006
Master's degree in London
MSc in Control of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
- 2009
PhD and the LSHTM in West Africa
Doctorate in medical entomology from Wageningen University. Until 2015, research fellow and representative of the LSHTM in West Africa, he creates and runs a laboratory for new tools against insecticide-resistant malaria vectors and trains technicians and junior researchers from Benin, Côte d'Ivoire and Europe.
- 2010
A reference on resistance
Co-authors the review on pyrethroid resistance in African anopheline mosquitoes in Trends in Parasitology, cited more than a thousand times.
- 2012
Expert for the WHO
Member of the WHOPES working group in Geneva until 2018, which evaluated and recommended insecticides for indoor spraying and long-lasting nets, then from 2014 of the Vector Control Working Group.
- 2016
Back in Côte d'Ivoire
Assistant Professor at the LSHTM, he settles at the Institut Pierre Richet in Bouaké under an agreement between the LSHTM and the INSP, with a Gates Foundation funded trial of EaveTubes in 40 villages of the Gbêkê region.
- 2019
The VCPEC opens
The new laboratory he created at the Institut Pierre Richet to evaluate vector control tools, fully equipped by the IVCC, is inaugurated on 7 May 2019 by the Minister of Health of Côte d'Ivoire.
- 2021
The Lancet
The cluster randomised trial of the lethal house lure in central Côte d'Ivoire is published in The Lancet.
- 2023
A GLP certified centre in Bouaké
The VCPEC-IPR he leads in Bouaké is certified compliant with the OECD Principles of Good Laboratory Practice.
Expertise
- Member of the WHO Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES) working group in Geneva, 2012 to 2018
- Member of the Vector Control Working Group (VCWG) since 2014
- Member of the WHO Evidence Review Group on long-lasting nets treated with piperonyl butoxide (PBO)
- Technical adviser to the national malaria control programmes of Côte d'Ivoire and Benin
- Member of the editorial board of Parasites & Vectors
- Expert reviewer of research proposals and careers for the National Research Foundation of South Africa
- Peer reviewer for The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Acta Tropica, Parasites & Vectors, Malaria Journal, Scientific Reports, Pest Management Science and PLOS ONE
Institutions
- London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
- VCPEC-IPR, Bouaké
- Institut Pierre Richet, INSP
- CREC, Cotonou