Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez

Hugo López-Gatell (born 1969 in Mexico City) is a Mexican epidemiologist, author, infectious diseases expert who has served as head of the Undersecretariat of Prevention and Health Promotion at the Mexican Secretariat of Health since 2018. Since January 2020, he has also played a major role as a spokesman and one of the lead members of the task force addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico.[1]

Hugo López-Gatell
Deputy Secretary of Prevention and Health Promotion of Mexico
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 December 2018
President	Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Preceded by	Pablo Kuri-Morales
Personal details
Born	Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez February 22, 1969 Mexico City, Mexico
Alma mater	School of Medicine of National Autonomous University of Mexico Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Spouse(s)	Arantxa Colchero. 1999-2019. She's been with Francisco Ortiz since 2016.
Scientific career
Fields	Epidemiology, Infectious Disease
Institutions	Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition Secretariat of Health

Career

Education

López-Gatell attended the School of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) graduating in 1994 as Physician-Surgeon. Afterwards, he obtained a master's degree in Medical Sciences at UNAM in 2000, and later a Ph.D degree in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University in 2006.[2][3][4]

As a researcher, he has written and participated in 40 papers, and in 2020 he had been cited an estimated of 6,457 times.[5] In addition to clinical and academic roles, López-Gatell serves as an associate editor for scientific journals as Global Health Action of the Umeå Center for Global Health Research, The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, AIDS (official body of the International AIDS Society) and the academic journal of the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition (INCMNSZ).

Public service

In 1998 he was appointed as Chief of Resident Doctors at INCMNSZ serving and as Medical Specialist A from 1999 to 2001. From 2013 to 2018 he was Director of Innovation on Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control at Mexican Secretariat of Health. In 2008 he was appointed as deputy general director of Epidemiology at the same secretariat. In that role, he led the creation of the National Epidemiological Surveillance System (Sinave), a re-engineering of the Mexican public health system to improve reporting and detection of epidemiological surveillance.

On December 1, 2018, López-Gatell was appointed by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador head of the Undersecretariat of Prevention and Health Promotion in the Secretariat of Health.[6][7] From the beginning of 2020 and after the rising of the COVID-19 pandemic López-Gatell has also applied his research and public service expertise as one of the main strategist and main spokesperson of Mexican Government on the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Mexico. From March 6, 2020, López-Gatell is conducting a daily press conference where he and the Secretariat of Health directives are giving information also explanations about the official strategies and decisions.[1]

The World Health Organization invited López-Gatell to join its team of experts in public health on May 24, 2020.[8]

Honors and awards

• Member of the National System of Researchers, 2008.

Criticism and controversy

López-Gatell has been criticized for the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico, with the opposition National Action Party formally accusing him of criminal negligence.[9] He has also been accused of under reporting infections numbers and associated deaths in order to downplay the severity of the pandemic, of misleading the public, for example by the former Minister of Health José Narro Robles,[10] and in a New York Times article.[11], and of denying the usefulness of medical masks and staying at home in order to avoid spreading the virus.[12]

References

1. Morán Breña, Carmen; Lafuente, Javier (26 March 2020). "López-Gatell: "En México queremos un balance entre proteger la salud y a las economías más debilitadas"". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-03-27.
2. "Dr. Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez". gob.mx (in Spanish). Government of Mexico. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
3. "Dr. Hugo López Gatell Ramírez Director of Innovation in Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control - Expert with National Institute of Public Health". ExpertFile. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
4. "PMNCH | Government of Mexico". who.int. World Health Organization. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
5. "Hugo Lopez-Gatell - Citas de Google Académico". scholar.google.es. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
6. "Mexican government to suspend activities from Thursday". Reuters. 26 March 2020. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
7. Da Silva, Chantal (17 March 2020). "Mexico tells citizens to follow "healthy distance" coronavirus guidance—starting next week". Newsweek. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
8. Embargo, Redacción / Sin. "AMLO informa que la ONU pidió a López-Gatell unirse al Grupo de Expertos sanitarios de la OMS". SinEmbargo MX (in Spanish). Retrieved May 29, 2020.
9. "¿Cómo será la investigación contra López-Gatell acusado por 'negligencia criminal'?". Heraldo de México (in Spanish). 24 November 2020. Archived from the original on 2021-01-30. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
10. "Polémica en México por acusación de exministro sobre datos de coronavirus". Agencia EFE (in Spanish). 7 May 2020. Archived from the original on 2021-01-30. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
11. Kitroeff, Natalie (2020-12-21). "Mexico Misled Citizens About the Severity of Coronavirus in its Capital". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
12. "After urging people to 'stay home,' Mexico's coronavirus official takes a maskless vacation". Los Angeles Times. 4 January 2021. Retrieved 2021-02-04.