Jacinto Convit, "Hero of Public Health"
Caracas, Venezuela, age 100
Dr. Jacinto Convit died on May 12th, 2014, just a few months short of his 101st birthday, at his home in Caracas Venezuela. Dr. Convit, who was honored as a "Hero of Public Health" by the Pan American Health Organization, located in Washington DC, in 2002, was a world-renowned expert in leprosy (Hansen's Disease) and tropical diseases. His work at Venezuela's Biomedicine Institute, which he founded in 1972, resulted in the development of an experimental model for leprosy. The work toward the development of a vaccine for the prevention and cure of leprosy provided the basis for an immunotherapy for leishmaniasis. These investigations led to his nomination by the Venezuelan government for the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988. Dr. Convit was director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Reference and Research in Histological Detection and Classification of Leprosy. In 1987 he was honored by Spain with the Prince of Asturias Award for his dedication and research into the prevention and treatment of leprosy, leishmaniasis, oncocercosis and mycosis, and other diseases affecting Latin America. He received many additional honors and awards from numerous countries, including the Order of the National Legion of Honor from France in 2011.
Dr. Convit's active career spanned more than seventy-five years. Early in his career, he was drawn to research that led him to investigate the medical conditions of patients in remote areas of Venezuela accessible only by horse and mule, through paths in the Andes Mountains, and later among indigenous peoples of the Amazon jungle and the Orinoco Delta. He strove to bring the fruits of his investigations to alleviate the hard lives of the populations stricken by diseases which then had little if any treatments.
He recognized the need to establish in Venezuela a research facility dedicated to investigating tropical pathogens and to developing treatments and prevention. In preparation for this, he sought international contacts and developed his own scientific knowledge through various associations and work. In 1962, he began an appointment at Stanford University (Palo Alto, California) as Visiting Professor for Tropical Diseases. Following this, he held a similar post at the University of Miami (Florida) Jackson Memorial Hospital for a year.
Returning to Caracas, he founded the Institute for Biomedicine that drew international medical investigators as well as physicians and scientists from Venezuela. Through work at this Institute, he published over 345 scientific papers and other studies, with his most recent publication in 2013 at the age 100. The Institute continues operation today. During the last years of his career he focused on using the same simple methods he had developed for Hansen's disease immunotherapy towards the development of an auto-vaccine for cancer. His work lives on in part through the efforts of the Jacinto Convit Foundation directed by his granddaughter.
Over several decades, Dr. Convit was honored scores of times. Although the recipient of a great many accolades, Dr. Convit was known for his modesty, and was generous in his acknowledgement of the work of others in laboratories throughout the world. He collaborated with researchers at the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (Washington, D.C.), as well as at universities in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
Born in Caracas in 1913 to a father from Barcelona, Spain and a mother from the Canary Islands, Dr. Convit attained his medical degree at Central University of Venezuela in 1938. He held research fellowships at Columbia University (New York) in 1944-45 and Case Western Reserve (Ohio) in 1945.
In 1946, he married Italian-born Rafaela Marotta of Caracas, and together had four sons. Surviving him are sons: Francisco Convit, a businessman in Caracas, Dr. Rafael J. Convit, a plastic surgeon in Washington, D.C., and Dr. Antonio Convit, a Professor and researcher at New York University in New York City. He was predeceased by his wife in 2011, as well as by his son, Oscar, in 1978. He is also survived by a brother Rene of Venezuela, many grandchildren, great grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. Up until they were both in their 80's, his wife would accompany him on research trips to serve patients in remote areas, where she would assist.
For decades, he was regularly participating in international symposia world-wide, and was especially active in the Pan American Health Organization, a World Health Organization affiliate. This Organization designated him a Hero of Public Health for his life work in 2002 at their centennial celebration. Dr. Convit became a folk hero in Venezuela for his dedication to the underserved poor as well as all patients with challenging or feared medical conditions. During his whole medical career Dr. Convit was known to not charge his patients. He was regularly invited to be "God-Father" to graduating medical school classes throughout Venezuela. On these occasions, he would be invited to offer a keynote address to the year's graduating class, at which times he always encouraged research, universal access to health care, and the importance of nutrition and exercise in the prevention of disease.
