Zafrullah Chowdhury

Zafrullah Chowdhury (27 December 1941 – 11 April 2023) was a Bangladeshi physician and public-health activist, founder of the rural healthcare organisation Gonoshasthaya Kendra in 1972, and best known for his work in formulating the Bangladesh National Drug Policy of 1982. As a young man he fought in the 1971 Liberation War and helped set up the Bangladesh Field Hospital for freedom fighters and refugees. He received the Independence Award, Bangladesh's highest civilian honour, in 1977 for his work in population control, and again posthumously in 2026 for social service, the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1985 and the Right Livelihood Award in 1992. ^{1 2}

He was born at Raozan and spent his early childhood in Kolkata before his family settled in East Pakistan; he was one of ten children. He studied in Dhaka and then medicine at Dhaka Medical College, where he became involved in student politics and leftist ideas, finished his MBBS in 1964, and left for the United Kingdom for postgraduate studies in general and vascular surgery. ¹

In 1971 he fought for independence and, with Khaled Mosharraf, was involved in setting up the Bangladesh Field Hospital, a 480-bed hospital for freedom fighters and refugees run by Bangladeshi doctors, medical students and volunteers, in which women with no previous healthcare training were trained within days to help the patients. The experience led him to believe that an effective healthcare system could be built in rural Bangladesh by training women as a primary healthcare platform, a finding that gained worldwide credibility when published in The Lancet. ¹

In 1972 he set up Gonoshasthaya Kendra, from a concept paper on basic healthcare in rural Bangladesh. The centre runs a university, a vocational training centre, agricultural cooperatives, a hospital, a printing press, community schools and a generic drug manufacturing plant; it pioneered cheaper generic drugs, introduced a rural healthcare insurance system in 1973, the first of its kind in Bangladesh, and lowered maternal and infant mortality. Critics have noted that its reach remained confined to specific areas; Chowdhury believed public health is a state matter that can never be left to the private sector. ¹

Chowdhury gained prominence as the driving force behind the Bangladesh National Drug Policy of 1982. Before it, some 4,000 commercial drugs were on the market, mostly made by multinational companies or imported and out of reach for most people, while the 150 most essential drugs were in short supply. Following WHO guidelines, the policy restricted manufacturing and imports to 225 drugs and emphasised locally made generics, making medicines far more widely available at drastically reduced prices; Bangladesh has since become a drug-exporting country. ¹

In 2015 the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh convicted him of contempt of court for a statement expressing concern over the conviction of the British journalist David Bergman, sentencing him to one hour's confinement in the dock and a fine of 5,000 taka. He suffered from kidney disease, septicaemia and liver problems after contracting COVID-19, and died on 11 April 2023, aged 81, at Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital in Dhaka, the hospital he had established. He is survived by his wife Shireen Huq, a son and a daughter. ^{1 2}

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