Dr. Shyam Sundar has been awarded with padma shree award this year for outstanding contribution to the diagnosis, treatment, and control of the neglected tropical disease visceral leishmaniasis (known as kala-azar).
For years, Kala-Azar was a death sentence for some of India’s poorest families.
And treatment itself felt like punishment.
15 injections, every alternate day!
A drug that sometimes caused dangerous heart complications.
For many families, surviving the disease wasn’t the only battle, a month away from work often meant losing the income that kept food on the table.
Prof. Shyam Sundar looked at this reality and asked:
What if one dose is enough?
In 2010, his landmark study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that a single-dose liposomal amphotericin B treatment could cure Kala- Azar with a 95.6% success rate.
One breakthrough changed everything.
He also helped introduce rapid diagnostic strip tests that cut detection time from weeks to minutes.
WHO updated treatment protocols.
The medicine that cost nearly 19,000 per vial started reaching India free through donation programmes.
Prof. Sundar also played a pivotal role in the development and introduction of miltefosine, the first orally effective drug for visceral leishmaniasis, now used globally, including in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. In parallel, his work on the rk39 rapid diagnostic test marked a major advancement in enabling timely and accurate diagnosis of the disease.
References:
