A Pakistani paediatrician and scholar at the Aga Khan University Hospital Dr Zulfiqar A. Bhutta was recently awarded the International TUBA Academy Prize in Health and Sciences by Turkish President Tayyib Erdogan at the Ankara Presidential Palace in Turkey.
Dr Bhutta is the founding director of the Centre for Excellence in Women and Child Health at the AKU and co-director of SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, Toronto.
The prize is annually announced by the Turkish Academy of Sciences to scientists in three fields — whose work is original, those whose work is leading, and finally those accomplishing path-breaking work.
Dr Bhutta received the award in recognition of the ground-breaking research he conducted on ‘mother and child health’ and his scholarly contributions to global health and policy.
He has to his credit 650 peer-reviewed publications and eight books, besides the key role he played in global efforts to improving the health of mother and child through evidence-based interventions which became the base of many national health policies.
The AKU pledged $85 million to Dr Bhutta for improving the capacity and development in programmes to reach 15m women and children in South and Central Asia and East Africa for saving potentially a million lives during the launching of new Global Strategy for Women, Children and Adolescent Health in September last.
Dr Bhutta has been a driving force to improving maternal and child health by way of his work and for advocating key changes in national and provincial health and nutrition policies.
“I accept this award with great humility on behalf of many in my team who have worked hard over the years to uphold the vision and mission of the Aga Khan University in supporting research and scholarship to address the lives of poor and marginalised women and children,” Dr Bhutta said.
“The fact that the award (based on the nomination from the Pakistan Academy of Sciences) comes from one of the leading countries in science and technology makes it all the more rewarding,” he added. Two other recipients of TUBA Academy Prize included Niyazi Serdar Saricifti of Institute of Organic Solar Cells, Physical Chemistry, Johannes Kepler, University of Linz and Mehmet Genc of Sehir University Istanbul in social sciences and humanities.
Dr Bhutta has the honour of receiving earlier two international prizes WHO Ihsan Dogramaci Family prize and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Samuel J. Fomon Nutrition Award.
