Ricardo Baptista Leite

Hon. Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite, Former Deputy Member and current Member of Cascais City Assembly, Member of the Portuguese National Parliament, Head of Public Health at the Catholic University of Portugal

Ricardo Baptista Leite is a medical doctor (ID-trained), a Member of the Portuguese National Parliament, and National Spokesperson for Health of the Social Democratic Party. He is the Founder and President of ‘UNITE – Global Parliamentarians Network to End HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis and other infectious diseases’, a global platform of current and former policy makers committed to ending these public health threats by 2030 in accordance with the UN SDG’s; Vice President of the ‘Parliamentary Network on The World Bank & International Monetary Fund’; and Global Ambassador of the ‘G20 Health & Development Partnership’ aimed at advising and advocating G20 countries on health policies aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

He is one of the six people to be awarded globally as a ‘HCV Change Maker’ by ‘The Economist’ in acknowledgement of leadership in the field of hepatitis C and is the Head of Public Health at the Catholic University of Portugal, and Coordinator of the Sustainable Healthcare Unit at NOVA Information Management School.

Prior to being elected MP, Dr. Baptista Leite worked as a practicing physician, including a 5-year Infectious Diseases residency program at the Western Lisbon Hospital Centre and an internship at the World Health Organization (Copenhagen). He is a PhD candidate at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and has undertaken post-graduate studies in John Hopkins University, Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Medical School. Ricardo is the founder of ‘CREATING HEALTH – Research and Innovation Funding’ and Co-founder of the ‘Estoril Conferences’, and the main author of the book ‘Citizenship for Health’.