Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite, MP, MD, PhD(c)

Member of Portuguese Parliament – Head of Public Health – Medical Doctor – University Professor -Public Health Advocate

Ricardo Baptista Leite is a Member of the Portuguese Parliament, National Spokesperson for Health of the Social Democratic Party, Medical Doctor trained in infectious diseases and Head of Public Health at Católica University of Portugal.

Under the auspices of UNAIDS, Ricardo is the Founder and President of ‘UNITE – Global Parliamentarians Network to End HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis and other Infectious Diseases’, a global platform of policy makers.

Awarded by ‘The Economist Intelligence Unit’ as a ‘HCV Change Maker’ (2016). This acknowledgment, attributed to solely six people globally, came in due recognition of Ricardo’s academic work and policy leadership in the field of hepatitis c.

National Spokesperson for Health of the Social Democratic Party and Member of the Portuguese National Parliament, currently on a 2nd term (2011-Present). Serving as coordinator (PSD) of the Parliamentary Health Committee and permanent member of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee; having served as Vice-President of the Foreign Affairs Committee, permanent member of the Parliamentary group on Population and Development, Chair of the all-party Parliamentary HIV/AIDS workgroup and President of the Portuguese-Canadian Parliamentary Friendship Group.

Head of Public Health at the Institute of Health Sciences of Católica University of Portugal. Guest Lecturer at NOVA Medical School (Infectious Diseases and Microbiology) and at NOVA Information Management School (Coordinator of Sustainable Healthcare Unit), both at NOVA University. Senior Fellow at New Westminster College (BC, Canada) and PhD candidate in Public Health and Health Systems at Maastricht University (The Netherlands). Previous experience includes having been an elected member of the supervisory board of the National Genetic Database Protection Agency and a decade of experience in health technology as a medical consultant at Glintt Healthcare Solutions (2009-2016), a multinational software house.

From 2015 to 2017, Deputy Mayor and City Councilor of Cascais, responsible for local health policy, academic partnerships, international relations (including economic diplomacy), youth (including Cascais European Youth Capital 2018) and employment policies.
In the past, practicing physician for 7 years, including a 5-year Infectious Diseases residency program at the Western Lisbon Hospital Center. Intern in public health (HIV, Hepatitis and STI’s) as a formal collaborator of the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, based in Copenhagen (2011).

Post-graduate studies in many universities in Europe and abroad, among which are Johns Hopkins University (MD, USA), Harvard Medical School (MA, USA), Harvard Kennedy School of Government/IESE (Madrid, Spain), Albert Einstein College of Medicine (NY, USA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) and AESE Business School (Lisbon, Portugal).