Monique Eloit

Dr Monique Eloit was elected Director General of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on 26 May 2015 by the World Assembly, which brings together the national Delegates of all OIE Member Countries. She began her five-year term of office on 1 January 2016, as the 7th Director General of the OIE, after having served as Deputy Director General of the OIE for six years. Monique Eloit entered the Alfort National Veterinary School (ENVA - France) in 1977. She graduated as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, having presented a thesis on infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, an early indication of her interest in livestock health management. Dr Eloit joined the State civil service in 1982 as a veterinary inspector. From the very first years of her work, Dr Eloit had to deal with sensitive issues such as the transport and slaughter of livestock, at both the national level and at European Community level, and participated in the first European negotiations on these topics. In 1992, she was placed in charge of the launch of the programme for the oral vaccination of foxes against rabies, which in several years enabled the disease to be eradicated in France. During the 1990s, she occupied successively the positions of Assistant to the Deputy Director for animal health and protection, in which capacity she participated in setting up the national agency for veterinary products (ANMV), and Deputy Head of the Department for food quality and veterinary and plant health actions. For over six years she also acted as Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the European Convention for the protection of animals kept for farming purposes (T-AP), at the Council of Europe. At the beginning of the new millennium, Dr Eloit was appointed Director at the French Food Safety Agency (Afssa). In this capacity she helped to reform the expert committees, supervised national veterinary laboratories with regard to their scientific and technical support activities, and represented Afssa on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Committee of national agencies. She was also in charge of the 'bioterrorism' dossier, which involved making some of the Agency’s laboratories available for controls on suspicious products.