Top doctor made famous during pandemic dies

A top doctor who became famous during the Covid pandemic has died.

Tropical medicine expert and infectologist Professor Vladimír Krčméry died on Tuesday, December 20, of pneumonia at the age 62. It was reported he had suffered from several illnesses in recent years.

Krčméry, a world-renowned expert in his field, became famous during the Covid pandemic, regularly appearing on TV and in print media to answer questions on the disease and provide expert analyses on the pandemic's development.

He was also one of the main faces of the country's Covid-19 vaccination campaign, and was the first Slovak to be vaccinated against Covid with the Comirnaty vaccine from the American-German pharmaceutical concern Pfizer/BioNTech on December 26, 2020.

The vaccine gradually became the most widely used in Slovakia. Almost three million inhabitants - more than half the population, were eventually vaccinated against Covid-19.

Anti-vaxxers’ target

But his prominence in the campaign led him to became a target for anti-vaxxers. He received death threats and at one point had a gun pointed at him.

"I don't like to talk about it, but one time I was threatened with a gun," Krčméry said as he recalled some of the threats against him by anti-vaxxers. However, this experience did not frighten him, he said, as he was used to it from his work in developing countries, where, it is thought, he helped save thousands of lives through his work in tackling infectious diseases.

As well as being part of the vaccination campaign, Krčméry was also a member of the government's ad hoc pandemic advisory body.

Helping developing nations

While Krčméry became well-known in Slovakia largely only during the Covid pandemic, he was an internationally recognised expert in tropical medicine and infectious diseases well before that.

He was known particularly for his work in developing countries, such as Kenya and Cambodia where he was involved in health and social projects mainly for the poor. In Cambodia, he launched the House of Family a charity initiative providing shelter for street children who were treated for HIV by Slovak doctors.

In 2002 Krčméry founded the University of Health Care and Social Work (VŠZaSP) in Bratislava, through whose branches and associated projects, his team treated 50,000 poor people annually in foreign countries.

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