Jacinto Convit Garcia (September 11, 1913 – May 12, 2014). Born in 1913 in Caracas, Venezuela, Dr. Jacinto Convit Garcia was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (1988) in Medicine for his contributions towards the development of a cure for leprosy. Jacinto Convit received his Doctorate in Medical Sciences from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in 1938. He devoted his life to the study and care of patients with leprosy, even volunteering as a physician at specialized clinics for leprosy patients.
Soon after graduating, he began teaching at the Central University of Venezuela before becoming the Head of the Dermatology Clinic at the Cabo Blanco Leper Colony in 1950. In 1960, the World Health Organization (WHO) commissioned Dr. Convit to lead the Cooperative Center of Drug Evaluation in the Americas to implement drug development and surveillance programs for parasitic disease. The WHO named him Director of the Cooperative Center for the study and Histology of Leprosy, and he went on to establish the National Institute of Dermatology (1972) and direct the Pan American Center for Research and Training in Leprosy and Tropical Diseases. He received the Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research (1987) for his work in treating leprosy and other tropical diseases.
He was well known to never charge any patient for his service, as he worked in a primarily poor community and spent his life advocating for children’s education. In 1987, his work on combining known tuberculosis treatment with leprosy bacteria would go on to lay the foundation for the construction of the leprosy vaccine and other tropical diseases. Afterwards, he dedicated the remainder of his life to the study of cancer until his death at the age of 100 in 2014.
REFERENCES:
- https://www.paho.org/en/public-health-heroes/dr-jacinto-convit
- https://www.jacintoconvit.org/history/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20131112223055/http://medicine.fiu.edu/conference/tropical_medicine/special_speaker.html
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4125274/
Image Source:
Fundacion Instituto de ingenieria
