Ricardo Mexia

Ricardo Mexia is a Public Health Physician and Epidemiologist. He graduated in Medicine (2002) from the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the New University of Lisbon, completed a Master’s Degree in Public Health (2013) and is a graduate of the EPIET-European Program for Intervention Epidemiology Training of the ECDC (2011). He is currently a member of the Epidemiology Department of the Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge.

He works mainly in the area of communicable diseases, having been involved in the investigation and control of several outbreaks (including the measles outbreak in 2016 and Legionnaires’ Disease at HSFX in 2017). Responsible for the epidemiological surveillance of various mass events (BOOM Festival, Andanças Festival, Centenary of the Pilgrimage to Fátima, Eurovision Song Contest, Torres Vedras Carnival, among others), with the development of various technological solutions. Coordinator of the Gripenet participatory surveillance platform, with contributions to the surveillance of the seasonal flu epidemic. Collaborator in the evaluation process of the National Health Plan, as part of the INSA team.

More than 30 papers published and presented at national and international scientific meetings in the areas of epidemiological surveillance, public health emergencies and mass gatherings.

He is regularly interviewed on health issues in various media (TV, radio, online, print). He has been a Guest Lecturer on the Integrated Master’s Degree in Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (since 2014) and on the Integrated Master’s Degree in Medicine and the Degree in Biomedical Sciences (Department of Biomedical Sciences and Medicine) at the University of the Algarve (since 2015).

He is a National Defense Auditor, having attended the National Defense Course in 2018/19.

He is currently the President of the National Association of Public Health Doctors (since 2016) and Vice-President of the Communicable Disease Control Section of the European Public Health Federation (since 2019).