Dr. José-Antonio Ruiz-Postigo qualified from the Medical School of Autonomous University of
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
He is a post-graduate holder in Tropical Medicine and International Health, and he further pursued
his interest in research by completing his PhD at the University of Barcelona. His thesis was on the
epidemiology and control of human African trypanosomiasis in the municipality of Kissama, Angola.
He has been working on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) for 28 years, mainly in sub-Saharan
Africa and the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region. Since 2013, he is based at WHO headquarters
where he led the World Leishmaniasis Control Programme for the period 2016-2019.
In 2020 he joined the newly created team on Skin Neglected Tropical Diseases at WHO
headquarters. Since then, his main work has been related to the creation of the WHO mobile app on
Skin NTDs, which includes a section on artificial intelligence, alongside the establishment of a
channel for online courses at OpenWHO and the implementation of a global web-based surveillance
at WHO for data collection, analysis and dissemination on leishmaniasis and skin NTDs.
