Horacio Arruda

In 2020, he became more widely known to the public in during the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec. Premier François Legault, Minister of Health Danielle McCann and Dr. Arruda take part in daily press conferences which attract a lot of media attention. Dr. Arruda has given advice during the Covid-19 pandemic and has become a social media subject of internet memes. In early May, Justin Trudeau disapproved of his advice to re-open Quebec's elementary schools and daycares.

During his first years of practice, Dr. Arruda worked at the Health Department in Laval. From 1998 to 2012, he was an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Montréal. He was Director of Public Health Protection at the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services from 2000 to 2012. In May 2012, he was appointed National Director of the Public Health Department. While working for this ministry, he has been involved in the management of the SARS outbreak in 2003, the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, and in public health measures during the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in 2013.

Horacio Arruda (born 15 October 1960) is a community health specialist currently serving as National Director of Public Health for the province of Quebec, Canada. Dr. Arruda also acts as Assistant Deputy Minister in the General Directorate of Public Health at the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services.

Born in 1960 in Sainte-Thérèse to parents from the Azores and who immigrated to Quebec in the late 1950s, Arruda obtained his Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Sherbrooke in 1983. He studied infectiology and epidemiology. In 1988, he also obtained a certificate in community health and preventive medicine at the University of Sherbrooke.