Venezuelan expert on leprosy dead at 100
Venezuelan scientist and doctor Jacinto Convit, renowned for developing a vaccine against leprosy, died on Monday in Caracas at the age of 100, his family said.
Convit won many international honors, including Spain's Prince of Asturias Award and France's Legion of Honor, and was tipped for the 1988 Nobel Prize for Medicine, although he did not win.
understanding of infectious and parasitic diseases such as Leishmaniasis and Chagas.
In the past 15 years, he devoted much of his time looking for a cure for cancer.
"This disease prevents me from sleeping," he confided in 2013.
In a statement announcing his death, his family said that Convit had spent much of his career working to cure diseases threatening the native peoples of Venezuela's tropical forests and river deltas.
© 2014 AFP
