Remembering Grace Egos

	Grace Egos, PIH consultant and TB infection control expert, passed away on July 12.

Partners In Health consultant and colleague Grace Egos passed away suddenly from an aneurysm on July 12 while participating in an international tuberculosis infection control meeting in The Hague. A respected expert in tuberculosis (TB) biosafety and TB infection control, Grace served as the Laboratory Director of the Tropical Disease Foundation in the Philippines, and has provided her expertise to organizations ranging from the World Health Organization (WHO) to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and PIH. Grace was 42 years old. 

PIH co-founder Paul Farmer sent a message to Grace's family and friends.

To the family and friends of Grace Egos: 

We extend our profound sympathies on your tragic loss.

The battle against diseases of the poor is full of unsung heroes like Grace, who made great contributions to the safe expansion of laboratories in her own country, working closely with our friend and colleague Dr. Thelma Tupasi and the Tropical Disease Foundation. She was also effecting change on a global scale, as an independent international TB infection control consultant working with WHO, CDC, PIH, and other organizations.  Here at Harvard, working closely with Partners In Health, she recently taught in the summer course for architects and engineers on airborne infection control. And her skilled posts to the community at GHDOnline have enriched the dialogue around infection control there, offering pragmatic device to practitioners on the ground.  Her work—locally, globally, online, and in meetings like the one she was attending in The Hague—used every available means to improve the quality and safety of services, for patients and providers.

Grace's colleagues will miss her wonderful smile and her warmth as much as they'll miss her skill as a teacher and the competence and formidable effectiveness she brought to our shared work. She was part of a team stretching around the world, bound together by a shared commitment to improving health care for the poor. We will not fail to carry Grace's work forward in her name.

On behalf of Partners In Health, GHDonline, the Division of Global Health Equity, and the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, I send condolences.  Know that Grace is, as you are, held fast in our hearts and thoughts.

Yours,

Dr. Paul Farmer