Academician Emeritus Professor Dato’ Dr C.P. Ramachandran FASc

Academician Emeritus Professor Dato’ Dr C.P. Ramachandran FASc is the world expert on filariasis. He earned his degree in Biological Sciences from University of Madras, in India. During this time, he developed an interest to fight against the neglected tropical diseases among the most unfortunate patients. He later decided to further his postgraduate training at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) where he obtained his Doctorate.

Dato’ Dr C.P. Ramachandran began his career in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine as a demonstrator in Parasitology from 1952 to June 1962. He returned to Malaysia in 1962, working on filariasis as a research fellow at the Institute of Medical Research (IMR) in Kuala Lumpur until 1963. He was later appointed as the Head of Filariasis at IMR from 1967-1970.

In 1979, his profound knowledge of filariasis had led him to join the World Health Organization (WHO). He was appointed as the Chief of Filariasis Control and TDR in WHO. He was responsible for the establishment of Centres of Excellence of Tropical Diseases in many developing countries of South America, Africa Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific Region. His greatest achievement was to put together a Global Strategy for Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis through a World Health Assembly resolution in 1997 (GPELF). As a result, they were able to successfully reduced infection rates from an original 120 million prevalence to less than 40 million today and prevented millions of children from being infected. He retired from WHO in 1996 and decided to join Universiti Putra Malaysia as Professor of Parasitology.

Dato’ Dr C.P. Ramachandran has contributed immensely to the field of Medical Parasitology in the country and abroad. He has published numerous scientific papers, and there are three parasites have been named after him. He has received many awards, one of which is the Mary Kingsley Medal, United Kingdom for Tropical Medicine. He was Fellow of ASM since 2003 and appointed as a Senior Fellow in 2011. He actively participated in many ASM studies and programmes and was appointed as the Alternate Chair of the Medical and Health Sciences discipline (2011-2015) and also ASM Council Members.