Associate professor
Department of Social and Preventive Medicine
Faculty of Medicine

Professor Souleymane Diabaté holds a doctorate in medicine from Felix Houphouët-Boigny University in Cocody, Côte d’Ivoire. He also obtained a doctorate in epidemiology from Université Laval and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in microbiology and immunology at the Research Center of the CHU de Montréal in Canada. Currently, he is a professor of international health at Université Laval.

Prof. Diabaté served as a clinical physician in the very first day hospital dedicated to the care of people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Côte d’Ivoire. He has been a trainer for the World Health Organization through capacity-building for national program managers to accelerate the elimination of onchocerciasis in sub-Saharan Africa. As a consultant for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, he contributed to the production of reports on the response to HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa, including among disproportionately affected populations.

Prof. Diabaté joined Université Laval to pursue studies in the master’s program in epidemiology, supported by an excellence scholarship from the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program. Due to his outstanding academic record, he transitioned quickly to the doctoral program in epidemiology at Université Laval and received the award for the best doctoral thesis from the Quebec Population Health Research Network in 2019. During his postdoctoral fellowship in microbiology and immunology, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, he coordinated a research project on antiretroviral response in people living with HIV in Benin.

Souleymane Diabaté’s research focuses on global health and takes place in Canada and sub-Saharan Africa. It includes epidemiology and prevention of sexually and blood-transmitted infections, sexual and reproductive health of adolescents and young girls and boys, and health equity. In sub-Saharan Africa, the findings of his work were among the first to demonstrate the need to strengthen antiretroviral distribution systems and expand awareness messages for HIV prevention among individuals undergoing antiretroviral treatment.