Famous People

Manuel Elkin Patarroyo (scientist).

Manuel Patarroyo, a Colombian research scientist is the developer of the world's first safe and effective malaria vaccine. The vaccine is the first against the parasite.

The vaccine could protect 100 million people from malaria, and could save 1 million lives out of an annual death toll of 3 million. No vaccine has ever protected that many people.

Patarroyo claims that his work and the efforts of his Third World colleagues are often treated with a condescension bordering on racism by northern scientists. He points out that it took him four years to develop the world's first safe and effective malaria vaccine in his lab in Bogota, but six years to have it recognized.

Rather than profit from his discovery, Patarroyo turned the patent for his vaccine over to the World Health Organization (WHO) for free, because he felt that the benefits should go to mankind, not to large pharmaceutical houses or rich investors.