OUR HIV EXPERTS

As a highly accomplished HIV clinician, researcher, speaker, and medical director, Dr. Ana Maria Puga brings to ViiV Healthcare extensive specialty experience in pediatric infectious diseases and the care of women, infants, children, and youth who are at-risk, living with, or exposed to HIV. Along with her deep commitment to the care and treatment for families living with HIV, Ana has advanced HIV education for healthcare professionals in Florida and throughout the country by providing opportunities for HIV preceptorships, training, and education. Acclaimed for her passion and caring as well as expertise in preventing and treating HIV, Ana has been recognized locally, nationally, and in internationally for her contributions, including as Keynote Speaker at the 2004 Congressional Summit on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.
 

Current Role

Ana joined ViiV in 2018 as Regional Medical Director for the Southern U.S. region. She is responsible for providing scientific and medical expertise for ViiV initiatives, including ViiV-sponsored clinical trials and ViiV patient access and HIV care continuum programs. Ana is also continuing to maintain a weekly clinical practice, along with her established academic positions at Florida International University and Florida Atlantic University. In her academic roles, Ana provides medical student and resident education in HIV, research, and adolescent medicine.

Experience

In her most recent role prior to joining ViiV, Ana initiated a women’s, children, infants and youth HIV/STD practice within the Broward House partnership with CAN Community Health in Broward County, Florida. Her work was aimed at ensuring zero HIV transmissions from mother to child and delivering effective HIV treatment while establishing PrEP and prevention initiatives for children, youth and young adults who are at risk for or infected by HIV. Prior to that, she served for over 20 years as Medical Director of the Comprehensive Family AIDS Program (CFAP) of the Children’s Diagnostic and Treatment Center, Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, providing clinical management and program oversight for nearly 800 HIV-positive women and 250 HIV-exposed and/or HIV-infected infants, children, and youth. Her work in the CFAP program ensured that 1300 Broward County families living with HIV benefitted from a multidisciplinary approach integrating medical care, social services, mental health therapy, substance abuse treatment, and dental care. From 2000 until 2017, Ana also worked as a Clinical Consultant for the Florida/Caribbean AIDS Educational Training Center (AETC), providing regular consultations for area healthcare providers on the care of HIV-exposed infants and HIV at-risk children and youth. She also counselled pregnant HIV-positive women on HIV perinatal medications and used her training as a Level 1 Reiki practitioner and Conscious Breathworker to incorporate healing practices into her patient care.

Ana’s additional professional activities include being Principal Investigator for over 100 clinical research studies, including more than 40 International Maternal-Pediatric-Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials protocols, Adolescent Trials Network studies, and the Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study Project. In addition, she has been active on many leadership committees and protocol teams including the Scientific Executive Committee for the Centers for Disease Control Legacy Project, and the National HIV Quality Advisory Committee. She has had multiple publications from her research efforts and received numerous local, national, and international awards, including the 2006 United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) Unsung Hero Award for HIV/AIDS Physician. A very special yearly event for Ana is Camp Hope, where she travels with and medically supervises more than 50 children with HIV/AIDS at a sleep-away camp near Houston, Texas.
 

Education

Ana earned her MD from Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico in 1990 and completed a residency in Pediatrics at the University of Miami, Jackson Medical Center in 1993. She went on to complete a fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and a postgraduate NIH research fellowship in HIV in the Department of Pediatrics, University of Miami School of Medicine. Her undergraduate work was also at the University of Miami, where she earned a BS in Biology.
 

Personal Interests

Ana is fluent in Spanish and English. She lives on Fort Lauderdale Beach with her partner and enjoys spoiling her niece, nephew and godsons, as well as boating and fishing in the Florida Keys, listening to Jimmy Buffett, traveling, and cooking gourmet meals for friends and family. She also enjoys party planning and loves the local theater and creative arts—music, photography, and art. As a volunteer Co-Medical Director of The SMART Ride, Ana enjoys supporting AIDS fundraising in SMART Ride’s annual 2-day bike ride from Miami to Key West.