Dr. Paul Farmer, who dedicated his life to fighting deadly epidemics, has died. He was 62 | Latest News Headlines

Dr Paul Farmer, a renowned infectious disease specialist who dedicated his life to fighting deadly epidemics and spent the past few years working on four continents providing health care to millions of people, has died in Rwanda, has confirmed its Partners in Health organization. He was 62 years old.

A Florida native who lived in Miami with his wife and children when he wasn’t traveling or teaching at Harvard University, Farmer was a co-founder of Partners In Health, a nonprofit healthcare organization Boston-based charity with a sister organization, Zanmi Lasante, in Haiti.

The recipient of numerous awards, one of his most recent being the 2020 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, and his $1 million cash prize, Farmer told the Miami Herald that his personal mission is to change the how humans think about infectious diseases and approach social issues. inequalities in health care delivery.

The cause of Farmer’s death was not immediately known, but PIH said in a tweet that Farmer died unexpectedly in his sleep on Monday.

Farmer was personable and preferred to be more behind the scenes than in front. When it was announced he had won the Berggruen Prize, he said he was deeply honored but still felt anxiety about being isolated. Without hesitation, he began crediting his army of researchers and health care providers, and said, “Such a large donation allows me to join the donor class.”

“I will direct my prize towards two important but far from insurmountable issues: getting us out of this pandemic and strengthening our understanding of racial injustice,” he said. “Primary recipients will include two organizations I have worked with for decades, Partners In Health and Equal Justice Initiative. These are organizations that do not shy away from the issues of exclusion and the distrust that invariably follows exclusion.

Prior to COVID-19, Farmer dedicated his life to fighting all the major epidemics that hit the countries where he dedicated his time: HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Cholera, Ebola, Zika and Chikungunya and now COVID-19.

Among his many cherished accomplishments was the construction of the state-of-the-art, 200,000 square foot Mirebalais University Hospital, which Partners In Health and Zanmi Lasante built in Haiti.