Dr. Quique Bassat

Site Director, CHAMPS Mozambique

As a pediatrician, with a special interest in infectious disease epidemiology and public health, Professor Bassat has attempted to combine his clinical work with biomedical research in those diseases that most affect the poor and vulnerable. Dr. Bassat’s research has always relied on the premise that there is no greater public health intervention than that which can reduce child mortality, particularly in poor contexts. He has worked in low and middle-income countries to understand and prevent malaria, and other infectious diseases that most impact child survival. His work on P. falciparum malaria has contributed to better characterization of the clinical disease, and assessing treatment and prevention strategies, including vaccines and new antimalarial drugs. His work on yaws disease has substantially contributed to the identification of new therapeutic and preventive strategies for this neglected infection.

He has also worked in Mozambique, Morocco and Bhutan on the epidemiology, etiology and clinical characteristics of pneumonia, diarrhea and neonatal sepsis, all major causes of premature and often easily preventable mortality. Recognizing that in the poorest areas of the world diagnostic capacities are scarce, he has studied host biomarkers as a tool to reliably differentiate viral from bacterial conditions, and thus better target antibiotic treatment.

In recent years, his research has focused on improving upon existing data on the causes of death in low-income countries, a fundamental barrier for better healthcare and policy. A significant contribution has been the validation of a radically innovative minimally invasive autopsy (MIA) sampling protocol, now well accepted as the proxy gold standard for the cause of death investigation, and routinely utilized across CHAMPS sites.

Professor Bassat completed his undergraduate at the University of Barcelona, where he also qualified as a pediatrician in 2004. He received an MSc in Tropical medicine at the University of Barcelona (2004), a second MSc in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2008), and obtained his Ph.D. in 2009 at the University of Barcelona. He has published over 230 articles in peer-reviewed international journals, and more than 15 book chapters.