Dr Dy Narong Rith, vice chairman of the National AIDS Authority and a driving force behind Cambodia’s efforts to fight the epidemic, died in France Monday from complications due to a stroke. He was 57.
On June 1, he had problems with his blood pressure and was admitted to Calmette Hospital, said Hiek Sovanny, who is married to one of Dy Narong Rith’s nieces.
A few days later he was transferred to Bangkok where he had two operations before going to France at the end of June for additional treatment.
He died in Reims, a city just northeast of Paris. He will be cremated there and his ashes will be brought back to Cambodia.
His family and the Ministry of Health will hold a ceremony for him on Saturday and Sunday.
“We are so sad to lose him. He was clever, good and gentle,” said Hiek Sovanny, who worked with Dy Narong Rith as head of the accounting office at the authority.
The National AIDS Authority was established in January 1999 to take over AIDS policy and lobbying from the Health Ministry’s National AIDS Committee. Dy Narong Rith became vice chairman of the authority when it began.
Although Health Minister Hong Sun Huot is chairman of the authority, Dy Narong Rith handled the day-to-day operations.
He is credited with making the authority more proactive, increasing the visibility of HIV/AIDS issues and helping formulate a national policy on HIV/ AIDS.
“He put a lot of effort into mobilizing resources to fight against HIV/AIDS,” said Mean Chhivun, former secretary general of the authority and director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS. “He spent his entire life to improve health care for Cambodians.”
The authority’s work is crucial here as the AIDS epidemic has been spreading to the general population in Cambodia in recent years, with more wives of husbands who go to prostitutes being infected.
A recent survey also showed three in five of the country’s sex workers have HIV.
The National AIDS Authority, along with the Health Ministry, co-hosted the first national conference on AIDS last year in March. For World AIDS Day, he brought four people with HIV to meet King Norodom Sihanouk and Queen Norodom Monineath.
Geoff Manthey, country program adviser for UNAIDS, said Dy Narong Rith was able to mobilize the prime minister’s office, the National Assembly, and other government bodies to become active in HIV/AIDS issues.
“Under his leadership, we saw significant progress of HIV/AIDS issues in the political arena,” Manthey said. “We need to carry forward what he started.”
Before he worked at the authority, he worked in the Health Ministry as undersecretary of state and then as secretary of state beginning in 1994.
He had lived in France with his wife, who survives him, since 1968 until he returned to Cambodia in 1993. The couple had no children.
