Didier Pittet

Professor Didier Pittet is the former head of the hospital epidemiology department and director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety at the University Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine in Geneva, Switzerland. He holds honorary professorships at Imperial College (London), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Health Science (Hong Kong) and the First Medical School of the Fu (Shanghai), as well as honorary doctorates (UCL Louvain, 2021; University of Buenos Aires, 2023). Professor Pittet is also a member of the Royal Medical Association (Ireland) and an honorary member of the All-Russian Scientific Societies of Epidemiologists, Microbiologists and Parasitologists, as well as the French National Academy of Medicine.

Author and co-author of more than 500 publications in scientific journals, he is also an editorial consultant for The Lancet. Professor Pittet is the recipient of several national and international awards, including a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) awarded by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the prevention of nosocomial infections in the United Kingdom (2007) and the Legion of Honour (France) awarded by President Emmanuel Macron (2022), as well as awards from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (2008), the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Award of Excellence (2009), the American Society for Microbiology (2016), the Robert Koch Prize (2017), the Pasteur Medal (2020) and the Ayliffe Prize Award (2022).

Professor Pittet is also credited with revolutionising patient care processes in hospitals by replacing hand washing with soap and water with the systematic use of alcohol-based hand rubs (ABHR) – hydroalcoholic gel – and spreading this change in practice to healthcare centres around the world. His work also involved donating a patent-free ABHR hydroalcoholic gel formulation to the WHO to facilitate its low-cost global distribution, leading to its inclusion in the WHO List of Essential Medicines in 2012.

Didier Pittet is Chairman of the International Scientific Committee (ISC) at emeis. The ISC is independent of the group's governing bodies. It is an international interdisciplinary body composed of external specialists and experts from various medical and healthcare fields. The ISC formulates the best recommendations in terms of medical science and healthcare practices, based on international scientific evidence with , while respecting national recommendations. The ISC has no decision-making or representative powers.