Carolina Batista
International Board, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, Head of Global Health Affairs at Baraka Impact Finance (Brazil)
Carolina Batista, MD, is a member of the International Board of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Head of Global Health Affairs at Baraka Impact Finance. She holds expertise in global health, R&D, infectious and neglected diseases, and has extensive experience in developing unique and innovative solutions to address public health challenges facing under served populations throughout the world. Carolina has worked intimately with vulnerable communities to identify pressing health issues and to engage the strategic stakeholders necessary to address them. During the span of her career, she has been able to design frameworks and guidelines that have ultimately impacted public policies in countries and communities around the globe.
Clinically trained in Brazil, Carolina started her career as a Family Medicine Physician in rural areas of the country. She later transitioned to work with indigenous communities in the Amazon, where she oversaw reproductive health management and treated infectious diseases. During this period, she also began leading and overseeing medical activities and had her first experience designing collaborative projects with strategic partners including local NGOs, governments and research and development institutions. In 2007, she joined MSF, working in a project in Somalia and has remained strongly connected with the humanitarian organization ever since.
In 2010 she was engaged to conduct an assessment on Chagas disease in the United States, the outcome of which influenced the design of approaches to disease advocacy in the US and other endemic countries. In 2011 she became the medical director at MSF in Brazil. Her primary focus in this role was to support field operations treating Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and emerging infectious diseases. She was also involved in multiple assignments with the organization in Africa and Latin America and coordinated MSF’s international campaign for Chagas disease.
After three successful years with MSF-Brazil, Carolina joined the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) Latin America as the Head of Access and Medical Affairs. There, she led regional R&D, medical and scientific activities, and design and implementation of access programs for neglected diseases in the region. Under her leadership, DNDi established successful public private partnerships to improve R&D and access to diagnosis and treatment for NTDs throughout Latin America. At DNDi Carolina was also able to design a successful access framework for Chagas disease currently used by a range of stakeholders, including local governments and clinical and academic centres of excellence. Additionally, during this period, Carolina served voluntarily as an elected Member of the MSF-Brazil Board of Directors.
Since 2018 Carolina has been working as a strategic consultant in multiple projects in global health and international development. She also serves as a Latin America Strategic Advisor for the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). In 2020, Carolina was actively involved in supporting grass roots associations in the fight against COVID-19 in various countries, led the MSF medical response to COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation, in the United States, and has published several articles and policy papers about COVID-19 in Latin America.
Carolina holds a combined master’s degree in International Public Health, from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp and The Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam.