Kent Campbell, essential figure in the fight against malaria, dies at 80
Among his accomplishments during a four-decade career in public health, he contributed to pioneering programs providing bed nets in Africa.
Kent Campbell, a key figure in the global fight against malaria — notably in Africa, where he led an innovative program providing mosquito nets to protect villagers from mosquitoes carrying the disease — died on February 20 in Oro Valley, Arizona, a suburb of Tucson. He was 80.
His death, in a nursing facility, was caused by complications from cancer, his children said.
As head of the malaria branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1981 to 1993, then as an advisor to UNICEF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Campbell is credited with helping save lives on multiple continents.
In Zambia, where he began working on a program with the Gates Foundation in 2005 to distribute mosquito nets and new anti-malarial drugs, malaria cases were halved in three years. . The program was later expanded to more than 40 other countries in Africa.
“His legacy in my country is that of one of the people who contributed greatly to the control and prevention of malaria,” said Kafula Silumbe, a Zambian public health specialist who worked closely with Dr. Campbell, in an interview. “It was a collective effort, but he was definitely part of that initial push.”
Tall and lanky, with a Southern drawl that revealed his Tennessee upbringing , Dr. Campbell stumbled upon what would become a four-decade career in public health.
In 1972, during his pediatric residency in Boston, he joined the C.D.C. as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. Shortly after, he was sent to Sierra Leone to help investigate an outbreak of Lassa fever, a virulent hemorrhagic virus.
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Among his accomplishments during a four-decade career in public health, he contributed to pioneering programs providing bed nets in Africa.
Kent Campbell, a key figure in the global fight against malaria — notably in Africa, where he led an innovative program providing mosquito nets to protect villagers from mosquitoes carrying the disease — died on February 20 in Oro Valley, Arizona, a suburb of Tucson. He was 80.
His death, in a nursing facility, was caused by complications from cancer, his children said.
As head of the malaria branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1981 to 1993, then as an advisor to UNICEF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Campbell is credited with helping save lives on multiple continents.
In Zambia, where he began working on a program with the Gates Foundation in 2005 to distribute mosquito nets and new anti-malarial drugs, malaria cases were halved in three years. . The program was later expanded to more than 40 other countries in Africa.
“His legacy in my country is that of one of the people who contributed greatly to the control and prevention of malaria,” said Kafula Silumbe, a Zambian public health specialist who worked closely with Dr. Campbell, in an interview. “It was a collective effort, but he was definitely part of that initial push.”
Tall and lanky, with a Southern drawl that revealed his Tennessee upbringing , Dr. Campbell stumbled upon what would become a four-decade career in public health.
In 1972, during his pediatric residency in Boston, he joined the C.D.C. as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. Shortly after, he was sent to Sierra Leone to help investigate an outbreak of Lassa fever, a virulent hemorrhagic virus.
We are having difficulty recovering the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode, please exit and log in to your Times account, or subscribe to the entire Times.
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