2017, Number 4
Thirty years of technology at work for health: Niurka Carlos, director, Immunoassay Center, Havana
Reed G
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Language: English
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Her passion for the “new world of informatics” led engineer Niurka Carlos to study computer sciences and digital systems, and her passion for health led her to join the embryo of Cuba’s Immunoassay Center in 1982 right after graduation from university in 1987, becoming one of the Center’s founders when it was launched that same year. First specializing in software, Ms Carlos was promoted to department chief, the Center’s management team and later to deputy director. She has headed the Center since 2014, leading implementation of research, production and marketing of diagnostic tools for the national health system and export. Today, the Center is expanding its horizons into chronic diseases that have become the main causes of illness and death in Cuba and are affl icting low- and middle-income countries at alarming rates as part of the world’s epidemiological transition. MEDICC Review spoke with Ms Carlos about the history, results, challenges and new frontiers of the Center in its 30th anniversary year.