As HIV/AIDs and tropical diseases ravaged Siaya county in the 90s and late 2000, Patrick Orege worked as a senior infectious diseases researcher at Kemri.
Besides his official engagements, he, alongside his wife Isabellah Anyango—another medical doctor—decided they would do something in their private capacity to save lives in their Masita village in Bondo.
So they set up a low cost private hospital—Bondo medical centre—and thousands of residents got a reprieve.
The two doctors used their networks both in government and globally to attract aid to the Bondo medical centre, enabling the people in the area to benefit from HIV services including counselling, drugs among other reproductive and general health services.
However, Dr Orege who helped save lives passed on on August 11 after battling a long illness, aged 69. He was buried on Saturday, and is survived by five children; Dr Juliette Sewe, Lorna Orege, Eng Michael Anyango Orege, Emily Orege and Anthony Paul Orege.
Orege had extensive experience in management of infectious, communicable and non-communicable diseases.
He was also a world renown doctor in the area of mycobacterial diseases with extensive experience in the management of skin conditions.
He worked as the sixth director of Kemri’s Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Control Research centre based in Busia, serving between 1983 and 1998.
After 1998, he got promoted to serve as its chief research officer and deputy director in charge of research and development, up to 2000.
In 2000, he worked as the technical deputy director to the National Aids Control Council, then acting director (2003-2004), and then as its director from 2005.
But perhaps one of his most consequential contribution in the fight against HIV/Aids scourge is his fight to maintain faith in the donor community to continue funding the fight against the disease amid reports of corruption in the sector in early 2009.
When reports emerged in 2009 that then NACC’s director Margaret Gachara had misappropriated over Sh300 million of donor money seconded to the council, fear of possible withdrawal of donors gripped the Aids community.
There were fears that the scandals at the NACC would cause donors to reduce or stop funding of Aids projects in Kenya. Gachara was arraigned in court for corruption.
Orege would be appointed to replace her and swiftly went flat out to assure the donor community successfully, to continue supporting the fight against HIV/Aids.
He assured them that the trial of Gachara would send a strong message to those in the Aids community.
"That one will be a reminder to many people who are going to use HIV/Aids money that it must be used properly and it must be used for the activities that it is targeted for and that misappropriation is not allowed," Orege said.
The doctor said at the time that he hoped international donors will see the fraud case as an isolated incident.
"The government is trying to make it clear that it is not going to allow the resources to be diverted."
His peers eulogised him as a north star in medical research, especially in the area of HIV/Aids and prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV.
Besides ground breaking achievements, he also held the hands of many, mentoring many doctors, especially when he served as chair of the Kenya Medical Association and later as chair of Kenya Dermatological Association.
-Edited by SKanyara