Luo Kuang-rui (羅光瑞), a former superintendent of Taipei Veterans General Hospital and pioneer of efforts to introduce universal hepatitis B vaccines for newborns in Taiwan, has died at the age of 101.
Taipei Veterans General Hospital confirmed that Luo died from multiple organ failure at the hospital on Friday last week, surrounded by family.
Luo and his team at the hospital had been among the first to promote the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns in the 1980s, Academia Sinica academic and hepatologist Chen Pei-jer (陳培哲) said on Sunday.
Photo: CNA
Despite limited research on the topic at the time, Luo advocated administering the first dose of the vaccine within 24 hours of delivery, as hepatitis is frequently passed from mother to child at birth, Chen said.
In 1984, Taiwan became one of the first countries in the world to launch a nationwide vaccination program, which led to a dramatic reduction in cases of the virus over the next 10 years, Chen said.
Prior to 1984, 70 to 80 percent of Taiwanese had been infected by hepatitis B and 15 to 20 percent were permanent chronic carriers, which made complications of viral hepatitis such as cirrhosis and liver cancer the nation’s leading causes of death, the Ministry of Science and Technology said in a report.
In subsequent years — including during his time as the hospital’s superintendent from 1988 to 1994 — Luo continued his clinical research on hepatitis B vaccination for newborns, to prove that it was safe and effective, Chen said.
Chen said that although he only met him in person after Luo had retired, he remained engaged and intellectually curious, returning to the hospital to attend medical lectures every week.
Only after a fall in his 90s did he begin to withdraw from public life, he said.
Luo, whose areas of expertise included gastroenterology, hepatitis prevention and vaccines, was a graduate of National Defense Medical Center and did postdoctoral research at the University of Washington.
Luo was also the founding superintendent of Taichung Veterans General Hospital and head of the Department of Internal Medicine at National Defense Medical Center.
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