A native of Haiti, but from a very young age living in this Caribbean nation, the so-called ‘father of Cuban parasitology’ graduated with a Bachelor of Science and Arts from the Institute of Secondary Education in Santiago de Cuba, and went obtain the position of Assistant Physics, Chemistry and Natural History.
In 1919, he moved to Havana to begin his medical career and won by opposition the position of Graduate Assistant in the newly created Chair in Parasitology and Tropical Diseases.
As early as 1934, Kouri had taken over the management of this space and the prestige achieved led to the inauguration of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in the Pavilion on Sunday, December 8, 1937, by agreement of the Governing Board. the Calixto García Hospital.
In addition, he dedicated himself to organizing laboratories, the Carlos J. Finlay Museum of Parasitology, combined teaching and research with the care service.
He was recognized for his studies on Fasciola hepatica, Amebiosis, Ascaris lumbricoides and the first discovery in Cuba of the intestinal parasite Inermicapsifer cubensis.
Today his legacy remains in the hundreds of specialists working in the modern facilities of the current Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), which since 1979 is named after Pere Kouri.
This center, of which Pere Kouri’s son, Dr. Gustavo, was the director, has helped make Cuba a world-class participant in the fight against tropical diseases.
With the arrival of Covid-19 on the Antillean island, the IPK became the “headquarters” of the health system to develop the country’s prevention and training strategies in the face of the global threat of SARS-CoV-2, causing the disease.
The National Reference Laboratory of this institution was one of the first three in charge of confirming the positive cases at the beginning of the pandemic in the national territory and there the genomic surveillance of the coronavirus is carried out in order to follow the development. of its variants, mutations and strains.
The IPK maintains close collaboration with international organizations and institutions such as the Pan American Health Organization, the World Fund, MediCubaEuropa, the Belgian Institute of Tropical Medicine, and the University of Berkeley, California, in the United States.
msm / cdg