Fransen started her career as a physician in Africa during the 1970s and 1980s (mainly in Mozambique,[1] Kenya[2] and Rwanda), with a particular interest in public health, infectious diseases and sexually transmitted infections.
[1] In 1987, the European Commission hired Fransen as a consultant from the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp to survey blood transfusion and HIV seropositive rates in Uganda.
[3][4] This led the European Commission in 1987 to help Uganda set up a safe blood supply,[4] and then to create the AIDS Task Force,[4] an international foundation of which Fransen was the founding executive director.
She organised a conference during UNGA in New York for the private sector to spearhead transformations towards the SDGs and helped set up the SDG platform in Kenya.
With the emergence of the Corona virus in 2020 she wrote and mobilised about the need to invest in manufacturing capacities for vaccines and other pharma products in Africa and Europe and the opportunity to increase resilience through a real partnership.