The award is named for Dr. Charles Mérieux, the distinguished French virologist (1907-2001), who used in-vitro cultivation to produce millions of doses of vaccines to fight human and veterinary viruses including polio, rabies, meningitis, diphtheria, tetanus, and foot-and-mouth disease. During World War II, he expanded operations at the microbiological laboratory set up by his father, a protégé of Louis Pasteur, distributing blood plasma to members of the Resistance and a serum to help malnourished children. In 1947, Mérieux founded the French Institute of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (later renamed the Mérieux Institute). The Mérieux Institute later formed a joint venture with the Pasteur Institute. Mérieux also established foundations to train public health technicians, an epidemiological teaching center, and a laboratory in Lyon to study hemorrhagic fever.
First offered in 2005, the award is presented at the NFID Annual Conference on Vaccinology Research.
Recipients:
| 2021 | Barney S. Graham, MD, PhD |
| 2020 | Pierce Gardner, MD |
| 2019 | Alan R. Hinman, MD, MPH |
| 2018 | John F. Modlin, MD |
| 2017 | Samuel L. Katz, MD |
| 2016 | Kathryn M. Edwards, MD |
| 2015 | D.A. Henderson, MD, MPH |
| 2014 | Stanley A. Plotkin, MD |
| 2013 | Robert G. Webster, PhD |
| 2012 | Arnold S. Monto, MD |
| 2011 | Robert B. Couch, MD |
| 2010 | Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD |
| 2009 | Paul A. Offit, MD |
| 2008 | Roger I. Glass, MD |
| 2007 | Walter A. Orenstein, MD |
| 2006 | Gregory A. Poland, MD |
| 2005 | Kristin L. Nichol, MD, MPH |