Eminent Cuban Scientist Concepción Campa Huergo Received the Pro Patria Award

January 15, 2024

The presentation took place during one of the General Assembly sessions of SEAP, presented by its president, Doctor of Sciences Zoila Benítez de Mendoza, for her relevant services to the Homeland and to humanity.

Concepción Campa Huergo, Doctor honoris causa of the University of Havana, received the Pro Patria Award in Havana, established in 2022 by the Economic Society Friends of the Country (SEAP) for outstanding scientific collectives in blocking the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in Cuba.

The presentation of the corresponding diploma took place during one of the General Assembly sessions of SEAP, presented by its president, Doctor of Sciences Zoila Benítez de Mendoza, for her relevant services to the Homeland and to humanity.

Campa Huergo possesses numerous national and international recognitions, was a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, and is the principal author of the flagship of Cuban science. This is how the Va-Mengoc-BC is called, commercial name of the result that marked the scientific endeavor of this century in the country, for being the first and only effective vaccine in the world against meningococcus group B, worthy of the Gold Medal of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

In turn, Eloísa Carreras Varona, director of the Chronicles Project, of the Archive of Doctor honoris causa Armando Hart Dávalos, a prominent Cuban intellectual and politician (1930-2017), highlighted the work of the latter in revitalizing the oldest non-governmental organization in the nation.

Shortly after announcing the admission of new members, attendees at the meeting debated and approved the 2023 Annual Report of the organization, founded in 1793 as a consequence of significant events that occurred in Havana in the second half of the 18th century.

The awarding of personalities included the granting of the Special Award from the president and her Board of Directors to Leonardo Pérez Gallardo, Associate Professor of Civil and Notarial Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Havana, for his outstanding contributions to the updating of the specialty, to the training of his students, and to the legal culture of the people.

Ramón Pichs Madruga, director of the Center for Studies of the World Economy, received the Félix Varela Morales Award (1788-1853), priest, teacher, writer, philosopher and Cuban politician, and considered the first who taught Cubans to think about patriotism.

Domingo Alfonso Pereira received the Samuel Feijóo Award (1914-1992) for Poetry on the Environment, for his lifework in which environmental concerns assume an uncommon perspective in recreating the urban environment. Daisy Rivero Albisa won posthumously the Historical Recognition for being the first president of SEAP in times of Revolution and honor, as did Sarita Hernández Ugarte, executive secretary, for 28 years of work. For more than 10 consecutive years as members of its Board of Directors received incentives Lázaro Mora Secade, Luis Gálvez Taupier, Olga Fernández Ríos, Jorge Núñez Jover, and Julio García Oliveras, posthumously.