Dr.
Zafrullah Chowdhury is a Bangladeshi public health activist who is widely regarded
as the "Father of Bangladesh's National Drug Policy," which in 1982
created a strategy to make health care affordable by locally manufacturing essential
lifesaving drugs. In 1972 he co-founded Gonoshasthaya Kendra (GK), which in Bengali
means "the People's Health Center." Today GK is a community development
program that includes many different activities, from training health workers
to provide health care in rural Bangladesh, to hospitals, generic drug factory,
universities, agricultural cooperatives, community schools and vocational training
centers. Dr. Chowdhury has received numerous awards for his humanitarian work,
including the Swedish Youth Peace Prize in 1974, the Ramon Magsaysay Award in
1985, the Right Livelihood Award (often referred to as the Alternative Nobel Prize)
in 1992, and the 1997 Independence Day Award, the highest honor in Bangladesh.
