Based on the true belief that research is a powerful tool to tackle health inequalities, my research interests have been always directed towards diseases affecting the most vulnerable and linked to poverty-related diseases. The work I have done on Plasmodium falciparum malaria has contributed to better characterize the disease in pregnant women, including changes in malaria transmission and its effects on malaria immunity and disease risk (Emerg Infect Dis 2019, CID 2018). I have investigated the burden and impact of P. vivax infection in pregnancy, a less known and neglected malaria species, demonstrating that is responsible for detrimental effects on the health of mothers and infants (PLoS Negl Trop Dis 2017), and the physiopathological mechanisms involved in vivax infection in the placenta and its phenotypical profile. Regarding HPV, the work I have contributed to the understanding the acceptability of HPV vaccine in Mozambique and which are the most adequate delivery strategies for vaccine introduction (Papillomavirus Res 2018). Concerning other infectious diseases with dramatic consequences on maternal and reproductive health, I studied the effects of Zika virus infection in pregnancy on maternal (Emerg Infect Dis 2018), foetal and infant health and its long-term consequences on infant neurodevelopment (Travel Med Infect Dis 2021). More recently, my research has focused on the understanding of a) the burden of diseases preventable through maternal immunization in sub-Saharan Africa (respiratory syncytial virus, group B Streptococcus-GBS, influenza and pertussis) and the long-term outcomes of invasive GBS disease (CID 2022), b) the immunization safety assessment in pregnancy and standardization of tools for data collection, analysis and reporting (Vaccine, 2017, 2019), and c) the determinants of successful introduction of maternal immunization in low and middle-income countries (PATH 2018).