Birth Date: | 4 November 1965 |
Party: | Social Democratic Party (2002–present) |
Birth Name: | Ana Paula Mecheiro de Almeida Martins Silvestre |
Office: | Minister of Health |
Term Start: | 2 April 2024 |
Occupation: | Pharmacist • politician |
Termstart1: | 26 March 2024 |
Termend1: | 2 April 2024 |
Constituency1: | Lisbon |
Alma Mater: | University of Lisbon |
Birth Place: | Bissau, Portuguese Guinea |
Office2: | Vice President of the Social Democratic Party |
Termstart2: | 18 December 2021 |
Termend2: | 3 July 2022 |
Predecessor2: | António Maló de Abreu |
Successor2: | Paulo Rangel |
Office3: | President of the Order of Pharmacists |
Term Start3: | 8 February 2016 |
Term End3: | 7 February 2022 |
Predecessor3: | Carlos Maurício Barbosa |
Successor3: | Hélder Mota Filipe |
President2: | Rui Rio |
Children: | 2 |
Citizenship: | Portugal |
Predecessor: | Manuel Pizarro |
Primeminister: | Luís Montenegro |
Ana Paula Mecheiro de Almeida Martins Silvestre Correia (born 4 November 1965) is a Portuguese pharmacist and politician of the Social Democratic Party who has been serving as Minister of Health in the government of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro since 2024.[1]
Martins was elected to the Assembly of the Republic in the March 2024 national election as a member of the Social Democratic Party, representing the Lisbon constituency.[2]
Martins graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon in 1990. She completed her master's degree in Epidemiology at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 1995 and her PhD in Clinical Pharmacy at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Lisbon in May 2005.[3] [4] [5]
For more than 20 years Martins was an assistant professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon, held the position of director of "External Affairs and Market Access" at MSD Portugal between 2006 and 2014 and also directed the center for Pharmacoepidemiology Studies of the National Association of Pharmacy between 1994 and 2006.[6]
Between 1989 and 1992 she was general secretary of the Order of Pharmacists. She was President of the Board of the Regional General Assembly of the South and Autonomous Regions of the Order of Pharmacists between 2009 and 2015. Between 2016 and the beginning of 2022, she held the position of President of the Order of Pharmacists, presided over the Institute of Evidence-Based Health and coordinated the Pharmacovigilance Center of Lisbon, Setúbal and Santarém of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon for several years. Between December 2022 and January 2024 she was Director of the Hospital de Santa Maria, in Lisbon.[7] [8]
From December 2021 until May 2022 Martins was vice president of the PSD, under the leadership of Rui Rio.[9] In January 2024, she was announced as candidate number three, on the Lisbon list of the Social Democratic Party for the 2024 legislative elections, behind Luís Montenegro and Joaquim Miranda Sarmento.[10] [11] [12]