CUBAHEADLINES, citing a Lancet report, announced that the father of Tropical Medicine in Cuba died in Havana on May 05, 2011, at the age of 75.
Gustavo Kourí Flores is credited with developing the field of biomedical research, shepherding Cuba’s formative generation of researchers and practitioners in the field and launching the study of tropical diseases and parasitology in his homeland.
The
Institute of Tropical Medicine Pedro Kourí (IPK) in Havana, Cuba, which he headed for more than thirty years, bears the name of his father who founded the institute in 1937.
Notwithstanding the important hats that
Kourí wore in his illustrious career – he served as Assistant Director of Research at Cuba’s National Scientific Research Center, Assistant Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice Rector of research and postgraduate studies at the
University of Havana – his lasting legacy will be the yeoman contribution he made in the field of
Dengue Fever research. This work was spurred by the record-making
Dengue outbreak, which occurred in Cuba in 1981.
María G. “Lupe” Guzmán, Kourí’s wife of 31 years, says that Kourí’s team was successful in determining the characteristics and micro-diagnostics of the epidemic as well as the risk factors for serious
Dengue. Always a hands-on microbiologist and virologist,
Kourí was never far removed from the actual design of
Dengue studies conducted by the
IPK and personally participated in the discussions of the findings with his staff.
Adds
Jeremy Farrar, Professor of Tropical Medicine at
Oxford University and Director of Oxford’s Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam, Kourí’s approach was never scientifically aloof. His approach to science, although hard-nosed, was patently community centred with a reverence for community values, community care and the workings of the community.
Gustavo Kourí Flores, dead at 75.
Source: cubaheadlines.com
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Source: cubaheadlines.com
22