Jonathan Van-Tam

Jonathan Stafford Nguyen Van-Tam MBE (born 2 February 1964) is a British specialist in influenza, including its epidemiology, transmission, vaccinology, antiviral drugs and pandemic preparedness. On 2 October 2017 he took up the role of Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England.

Professor

Jonathan Van-Tam

MBE
Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England
Assumed office
2 October 2017
Serving with Aidan Fowler (2018-present)
and Jenny Harries (2019-present)[1]
Preceded byProfessor John Watson
Personal details
Born
Jonathan Stafford Nguyen Van-Tam
Alma materUniversity of Nottingham
ProfessionPublic health physician[2]

Early life

Van-Tam attended Boston Grammar School in Boston, Lincolnshire where his father, Paul Nguyen Van-Tam, was a teacher of mathematics.[3] He graduated in Medicine from the University of Nottingham in 1987.[2]

Career

After five years of hospital-based clinical medicine, Van-Tam pursued academic training in public health and epidemiology and developed an interest in influenza and respiratory viruses, mentored for many years by Professor Karl Nicholson. He became a Senior Lecturer at the University of Nottingham (and Consultant Regional Epidemiologist, Public Health Laboratory Service) in 1997,[4] before joining the pharmaceutical industry as an Associate Director at SmithKline Beecham in 2000.

In April 2001 he moved to Roche as Head of Medical Affairs, before joining Aventis Pasteur MSD in February 2002 as UK Medical Director.

Van-Tam returned to the public sector in 2004 at the Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections, where he was Head of the Pandemic Influenza Office until October 2007. He then returned to Nottingham as Professor of Health Protection. He has published over 100 scientific papers and written for textbooks. He chaired the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Expert Advisory Group on H5N1 human vaccines, sits on the UK national Scientific Pandemic Influenza Committee (SPI), and was a member of the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) during the 2009-10 pandemic. He is Co-Editor of the textbook Introduction to Pandemic Influenza[5] and was editor-in-chief of the journal Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses from 2014 to 2017.[6]

His unit is an officially designated WHO Collaborating Centre for pandemic influenza and research and a UK Faculty of Public Health 'National Treasure' research training location.

Since 2014 he has been Chair of the UK government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG).

On 2 October 2017 he took up the role of Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England.[7] In this capacity, he gained nationwide visibility during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.[8][9] In May 2020, he was appointed to the expert advisory group for the UK Government’s Vaccine Task Force, chaired by Patrick Vallance.[10]

Recognition

Van-Tam was awarded an MBE (military section) in the 1998 New Year's Honours as Acting Maj Jonathan Stafford Nguyen-Van-Tam, Lincolnshire Army Cadet Force. It was awarded in recognition of his work in designing a first aid kit to meet the special requirements of large groups of teenagers on camping expeditions. This sprang from his work with the Lincolnshire Army Cadets since 1988. His ideas were accepted by the Ministry of Defence.

Personal life

Van-Tam's grandfather was Nguyễn Văn Tâm, nicknamed the Tiger of Cai Lậy, who served as Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, and his uncle was Nguyễn Văn Hinh, chief of staff of the Vietnamese National Army and the first Vietnamese officer in the French Armed Forces to be promoted to the rank of general.[3]

He has stated that he is a dedicated supporter and season ticket holder at Boston United.[11]

gollark: Yes.
gollark: It just had a bunch of definitions for sigmoids.
gollark: S1 MemeBot's wasn't very long.
gollark: The really inefficient search engine I'm working on's only 541 lines.
gollark: *That* much? To be honest that seems kind of excessive.

References
  1. "Professor Chris Whitty". GOV.UK. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  2. "General Medical Register". General Medical Council. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  3. Bagley, Geo. S. (1985). Floreat Bostona, The history of Boston Grammar School from 1567. The Old Bostonian Association. p. 242. ISBN 978-0951043103.
  4. Professor Jonathan Van-Tam to be Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England Archived 21 March 2020 at the Wayback Machine University of Nottingham
  5. Van-Tam, Jonathan; Sellwood, Chloe (2009). Introduction to pandemic influenza. CABI Publishing. ISBN 978-1845936259.
  6. "Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses - Editorial Board". Wiley Online Library. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  7. "New Deputy Chief Medical Officer appointed". UK Government. 29 September 2017. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  8. New financial measures to help UK through coronavirus pandemic to be announced by government ITV News, 17 March 2020
  9. "Coronavirus: UK trialling existing and new medicines". BBC News. 3 April 2020. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  10. Funding and manufacturing boost for UK vaccine programme Government of the United Kingdom, press release of 17 May 2020.
  11. "Here's why Boston United has been trending nationally on Twitter". LincolnshireLive. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
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