Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit

Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit (born 25 March 1979) is a German physician and virologist specialising in arboviruses and emerging zoonotic infections. He is Professor of Arbovirology at the University of Hamburg, heads the Department of Arbovirology and Entomology at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM), and serves as deputy director of the institute's World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Arbovirus and Haemorrhagic Fever Reference and Research. His research focuses on the detection, diagnosis and surveillance of mosquito-borne viruses in Europe, including Usutu virus, West Nile virus and Zika virus, as well as on emerging zoonotic pathogens. He became widely known in Germany as a scientific commentator during major infectious-disease outbreaks, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic. Schmidt-Chanasit is married, father of a son and a daughter and lives with his family in Berlin and Bangkok.