Paul Farmer, an infectious disease physician and global health advocate, has died, CNN reports. He was 62.
Farmer, who was the chair of the global health department at Harvard Medical School and chief of the global health equity division at Brigham and Women's Hospital, also co-founded Partners In Health in 1987, CNN says. The organization aims to bring high-quality medical care to impoverished regions, NPR adds, noting that it was founded in Haiti and has since operated throughout Africa and Latin America as well as in Russia and the Navajo Nation in the US. CNN adds that Partners in Health, for instance, built University Hospital, a 300-bed, state-of-the-art facility in Mirebalais, Haiti.
According to Partners In Health, Farmer died in his sleep of a cardiac event in Rwanda. NPR adds that he was in Rwanda to teach at the University of Global Health Equity.
"Paul Farmer's loss is devastating, but his vision for the world will live on through Partners in Health," Sheila Davis, the organization's CEO, says in a statement. "Paul taught all those around him the power of accompaniment, love for one another, and solidarity. Our deepest sympathies are with his family."