Exactly 61 personalities will receive this Wednesday in the capital the Carlos J. Finlay Barré Order corresponding to 2024, the highest distinction of the Cuban Government to nationals and foreigners for their contributions to the development of science for the benefit of humanity.
Most of them belong to central government agencies and the rest to institutions, schools and centres, and will be honoured at a ceremony to be held at the Meliá Cohiba Hotel, announced Dr. María Luisa Zamora Rodríguez, director of the Scientific and Technological Potential of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA).
Speaking exclusively to the Cuban News Agency, she added that the CITMA commission evaluated 82 proposals for recognition from almost all the country’s provinces, of which 35 are male, representing 47.94%, and 38 are female, 52.05%.
Thus, 54 Cuban citizens, three from Argentina, France and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and the Higher Military School Comandante Arides Estévez Sánchez, of MINFAR, will receive the award.
Also from the Cuban Academy of Sciences and the Environmental Studies Centre of Cienfuegos, and the MININT’s Advanced Technology Applications Centre.
The Carlos J. Finlay Barré Order is the highest distinction granted by Presidential Decree, at the request of CITMA, as the governing body of the nation’s scientific work.
Its history dates back to 14 August 1881, when the Camagüey-born Carlos Juan Finlay de Barres (1833-1915) presented his thesis on the female Aedes Aegypti mosquito as a transmitter of yellow fever at the Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences in Havana, and elaborated an antivector plan to eradicate the disease.
Because of the importance of his discovery, in 1975 UNESCO included him among the six most outstanding microbiologists in history and in 1981 awarded for the first time the International Prize that bears his name, in order to recognise advances in microbiology.
The Carlos J. Finlay Barré Order was established on 21 January 1928, by decree 77 of President Gerardo Machado to encourage scientists, physicists and civil servants (national and foreign) for exceptional merits in the field of public health and social welfare.
After the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, on the initiative of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro in 1981, it was reinstated with a new design to stimulate «comrades and groups in recognition of their extensive scientific, research and teaching activity, whose results contribute in an outstanding way to the prestige and development of science in our country».
Among the first recipients of the award was Francisco Domínguez Roldán (1864-1942), a Cuban doctor who introduced radiology and physiotherapy to Cuba.
On 23 April 1953, the British researcher Sir Alex Flemming, discoverer of penicillin, the drug used to treat infections caused by sensitive bacteria, received the award in Havana.
