Luis Cuevas

Abstract

Epidemiologist and expert in infectious diseases and diagnostics. Born in Guatemala City, Guatemala, on July 29, 1956, he died of pancreatic cancer on Jan 2, 2023 in Wirral, UK, aged 66 years. As an epidemiologist and expert in tropical medicine, Luis Cuevas was driven by the question of how to make a practical difference in access to diagnostics and treatment for people in low-resource settings. “He usually started with a simple idea and expanded, exploring and bringing relevant expertise from others and working with different partners and individuals”, said Mohammed Yassin, a Senior Advisor on Tuberculosis at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Geneva, Switzerland. Although Cuevas’ research stretched across multiple diseases, speeding up the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis was a passion. “He was always reaching out to underserved communities and pushing for better diagnostics to identify people with TB”, said John Bimba, Director of Zankli Research Centre and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Community Medicine at Bingham University in Karu, Nigeria. “He was driven to find a better way of making a diagnosis, especially at point of care.” Cuevas received a bachelor of medicine, bachelor of science degree from the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City in 1981 and also did his paediatric residency there. His father, Rafael Cuevas del Cid, was the former Rector of the University of San Carlos and a critic of Guatemala's military government. Cuevas adopted his father's political activism, serving as a medical student union leader. In 1984, he was forced to flee Guatemala with his daughter and then-wife, after his brother was disappeared. “His background and that experience of having been so vulnerable” would influence his later work, said Bertie Squire, Professor of Clinical Tropical Medicine and Dean of Clinical Sciences and International Public Health at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), Liverpool, UK. Cuevas received a scholarship through the World University Service to attend LSTM, where he did a master's in tropical medicine and a postgraduate diploma in tropical child health. He remained at LSTM for much of his career. Hired as a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Epidemiology in 1989, he became Professor of International Health and Epidemiology in 2012, head of the Department of Clinical Sciences in 2015, and led the Tropical Clinical Trials Unit. “In his early days at LSTM, he did a lot of work on paediatric infectious diseases. He had this broader engagement from early on and that foundation in a number of infectious diseases that were particularly impacting low-income countries and disadvantaged populations”, Squire said. Cuevas was also involved in evaluating rotavirus vaccines and research on respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases and viral haemorrhagic fevers, but as his career progressed he increasingly focused on tuberculosis. He recognised that as advances were made in diagnosis and treatment for other infectious diseases, “TB has been there for centuries and not much has been achieved, especially in the diagnostic aspect”, Bimba said. Among his achievements, Cuevas showed “through a big implementation research piece how community health workers could make a massive difference to the number of TB cases identified and started on treatment”, Squire said. He was also among the experts “pushing this idea of being able to make a one-stop diagnosis”, Squire said. Cuevas joined the WHO/TDR in 2009 for a 2-year stint as a Senior Scientist to focus on tuberculosis diagnostics. In 2011, WHO adopted approaches for same-day tuberculosis diagnosis that he helped to design. Crucially, Cuevas built networks with research teams across multiple continents. “He knew the science, but also the strategy of how you interact, how you get the most out of people, bring out the best in people,” said Shabbar Jaffar, Director of the University College London Institute for Global Health, UK. That approach translated into his teaching and Cuevas was a valued mentor; Yassin, a former student, described him as “very close and always supportive and available”. Cuevas and his colleagues secured funding from UNITAID to build the START 4-All project, an initiative beginning in 2022 that combines existing and new tuberculosis diagnostics to increase affordable, accurate coverage. Emily Adams, Reader in Diagnostics for Infectious Diseases at LSTM, called this award “the culmination of his career… It brings together pragmatic solutions that could be used in rural or underserved community settings along with patients that would benefit by being on the appropriate therapy as soon as possible.” Cuevas is survived by his wife, Rachel, and his children, Sofia, Natalia, Francesca, and Miguel.