Odette Ferreira, who, in collaboration with the Pasteur Institute discovered the HIV type 2 strain over three decades ago, died at 3.30pm on Sunday afternoon at the São Francisco Xavier Hospital in Lisbon.
She graduated from the Pasteur Institute after completing her bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy, and went on to establish a long and fruitful collaboration with the French institution.
Thirty-three years ago Odette Ferreira, in the laboratory, and José Luís Champalimaud, a clinician, took a sample of a newly-detected HIV type 2 variant to Paris, which confirmed the finding.
It had been collected by Kamal Mansinho in patients from Guinea-Bissau, in September 1984.
Later in her career, she presided over Portugal’s National Commission against AIDS between 1992 and 2000, fought continuously against the stigma surrounding AIDS patients, and received the National Health Prize in 1993, which distinguishes those who contribute to the achievement of health gains within the National Health Service.
Last year, the Lisbon University Faculty of Pharmacy, which had already instituted the Odette Ferreira Prize for Public Health, paid her further homage by naming its auditorium after her.
In February this year she received the Grand Cross of the Order of Public Instruction from the President of the Republic.