In this hospital, and according to the doctor’s CV note made available to DN, Bárbara Flor de Lima was also president of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee of the Amadora-Sintra Local Health Unit, having developed other work in the area of infection prevention and control programs and antimicrobial resistance. (PPCIRA). Between 2021 and 2023, he also joined the Quality and Patient Safety Committee and the Legionella Prevention and Control Team, at the same hospital.
Born on October 11, 1985, Bárbara Silveira Dias Flor de Lima attended and completed secondary education at Escola Antero de Quental, in Ponte Delgada, São Miguel, Azores, in 2001, before dedicating herself to a degree in Medicine. After completing the course, he chose the area of Infectious Diseases for his master’s degree at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Porto University, and only later completed his specialty in this area, between January 2011 and December 2015, in the Infectious Diseases department at Hospital Curry Cabral, in Lisbon.
Her appointment as director for this national program is all the more important as we know, and according to the latest reports from health entities, that the number of cases of sexually transmitted infections has been increasing in Portugal and Europe – it should be noted that in the year 2022 the biggest increase in the number of cases since 2009 was identified – or rather, since there is mandatory surveillance and notification of these diseases in the countries of the European Union and the European Economic Area (EU/EEA).
At this time, the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) asked countries to take “urgent and immediate measures” to prevent new transmissions and mitigate the impact of these diseases on public health, as there was a “very significant” increase in cases of gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia and lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV).
In the same report, Portugal was considered one of the countries in which STIs were increasing, giving as an example the record of gonorrhea, a disease in which it had been one of the countries that had recorded a “growth of more than 50%”, along with Spain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Norway and Poland. After the release of these data, the new director-general of Health, Rita Sá Machado, expressed concern and said she wanted to “implement measures to stop contagion”.