Renaud Piarroux was born in
Cherbourg,
France, the son of painter Jean Piarroux and medical
pathologist Marie-Claude Deleval. Following graduation, he became
assistant professor of parasitology at Besançon University Hospital, where he created the parasitology-
mycology department and became a
full professor in 2001. He was director of Santé et Environnement Rural Franche-Comté, and the EA2276 research team at
Franche-Comté University from 2004 to 2007. In
Besançon, his
academic publication subjects included:
Farmer's lung, the relationship between
mold and
asthma, unhealthy dwellings,
cholera,
echinococcosis (a local parasitic disease). Following a move in 2008 to
Marseille, his work focused on three subjects: His interest in
cholera epidemics started in 1994 while working as a
volunteer pediatrician in
Goma,
Zaire during an extensive
cholera outbreak following the
Rwandan genocide. He next encountered
cholera while working with
MDM in
Grand Comorro in 1998. There, he created a
surveillance system that with rapid follow-up and simple interventions eventually brought the outbreak under control. Piarroux next helped in defining
cholera control priorities in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo, with the help of a local
epidemiologist, who became his student, Dr. Didier Bompangue. They observed that
cholera regularly came back from the lake area in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo. Enlarging his study in time and space, and using
genetic analysis he concluded that only a few towns play the role of amplifier, and that
cholera was linked to human mobility. In 2010 Piarroux was asked by the
French government to investigate the
Haiti cholera epidemic; questions arose in the
scientific community as
Haiti had never been hit by
cholera before. His investigation led to the controversial conclusion that the
epidemic was imported by
United Nations soldiers in a
Nepalese
UN peacekeeping camp near
Mirebalais in the center of
Haiti. His findings ran counter to the more popular
Haitian environmental
cholera paradigm.
Pr Rita Colwell, the main proponent of the environmental theory, postulated it was a "perfect storm" of three converging factors, an
earthquake followed by a hot summer and then a
Hurricane that triggered the explosive
epidemic. Piarroux agreed that some
vibrios are living in coastal waters, but argued that in
Haiti (as in
Democratic Republic of Congo),
cholera didn't come ex nihilo from coastal water, and further that the storm came after the
epidemics had started. Other
scientists demonstrated that the
cholera in
Haiti originated from
Nepal. Human mobility was thus key to
disease transmission in
Haiti. This was important information for formulating an effective elimination strategy. Details of the political and scientific controversies are presented in
Deadly River by
Ralph R. Frerichs (
Cornell University Press, 2016). Following the publication of a long time
United Nations Special Rapporteur,
Philip Alston, the
Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon acknowledged the role of
United Nations soldiers in the beginning of the Haitian cholera epidemics. He presently defends a new approach based on an "intense effort to treat and prevent the disease, as well as a concerted effort to deliver material assistance to those most directly affected." In 2020, he was actively working for the APHP CPVID response team, especially in developing COVISAN, a project aiming at helping COVID positive person to better isolate themselves. He describe this fight in ''La Vague, l'épidémie vue du terrain''(
CNRS Editions, 2020). Piarroux has three adult children. He resides in
Paris. ==Publications==