Professor, doctor, tropical medicine and infectious disease expert Vladimir Krcmery died at the age of 62 on Tuesday (December 20).
"It was with great sadness that I learnt of the death of Professor Vladimir Krcmery. He was a man who gave his heart to others. He helped there where others were afraid to enter even in their thoughts, those forgotten by the world – the poorest of the poor," wrote Heger on social media. He stressed that Krcmery stood in the front line of health workers during the coronavirus pandemic, ready to defeat it.
President Caputova posted on social media that Krcmery was a man of faith and his attitudes inspired many to medical service in poor countries or to help the weakest. She added that it was his experience and authority that significantly contributed to the management of the coronavirus pandemic and that Krcmery was always full of optimism and hope, and she will remember him as such.
Krcmery was born into a family of scientists and doctors. His uncle MUDr. Silvester Krčméry was imprisoned during the communist regime for church activities among medical students and workers. Even he himself secretly participated in the work of church youth movements in his youth.
Vladimír Krčméry was responsible for the establishment of several educational institutions in Slovakia. He helped with the restoration of the University of Trnava, where he founded the medical section and the medical faculty and was its first dean. During this period, he started working in Kenya, where development humanitarian, scientific and educational projects were opened with his help. He also helped build the Slovak Medical University in Bratislava.
He founded the private University of Health and Social Work St. Alžbety in Bratislava, which has several detached workplaces in Europe and Africa, in 2002. Together with the school, he launched a successful House of Family children's home project in Cambodia. Until 2013, he was the rector and statutory representative of the school where he founded the Tropical Team.
He was an ambassador of the anti-tetanus project of UNICEF, a member of the council of the Minister of Health, director of the Slovak Postgraduate Academy of Medicine. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he became a member of the Permanent Crisis Staff of the Slovak Republic. He was one of the main faces of the vaccination campaign against the COVID-19 disease and also one of the most sought-after experts.
