Global Fund Congratulates Alex Godwin Coutinhou on Winning Prize for Medical Services
15 March 2013
GENEVA – Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, today congratulated Alex Godwin Coutinhou for winning the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for medical services.
“No one has done more than Alex in global health,” said Dr Dybul. “He has contributed so much to improve the lives of others, from the community level to the tertiary care level. We can’t say enough about him.”
Dr Coutinhou currently serves as Executive Director of the Infectious Disease Institute at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Previously he served as Chief Executive of the AIDS Support Organization (TASO), creating models of HIV prevention, care, and treatment that have since been widely adopted, enabling patients to get treatment close to where they live.
In a 30-year career, Dr Coutinhou has been an active and compassionate clinician, treating thousands of HIV and AIDS patients at a time when there was a lot of stigma and fear. He mentored hundreds of health workers, trained a cross-section of community care givers, pioneered programs and established clinical facilities with HIV services.
Dr Coutinhou also played a prominent role in the establishment and development of the Global Fund. He has been a valued and strong supporter, and was an early leader of the Global Fund’s Technical Review Panel.
The Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize, announced by the Government of Japan on 13 March, is intended to honor individuals or organizations with outstanding achievements in the fields of medical research and medical services to combat infectious and other diseases in Africa.
In awarding the prize, Japan’s Cabinet Office praised Dr Coutinhou for “his pioneering efforts to expand access to life-sparing medicine for people infected with HIV.”
“Dr Coutinho’s efforts focused on the needs of the poorest of the Africa’s poor, bringing AIDS care to thousands of individuals long underserved for all forms of health care, thus serving as a model of applicable for a broader range of medical exigencies,” said Japan’s Cabinet Office.
The prize includes a citation, a medal and an honorarium of Y100 million. An awards ceremony will be held in Tokyo on 1 June, at the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development.