Karel Styblo

Karel Styblo, MD, (1921 – 13 March 1998) was born in Czechoslovakia. Internationally renowned for his work with tuberculosis (TB), he was a medical advisor to the Royal Netherlands Tuberculosis Association, and a director of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) in Paris from 1979. He is known as the "father of modern TB epidemiology" and the "father of modern TB control".

Styblo was born in Klaster, Czechoslovakia in 1921. Toward the end of World War II, he was imprisoned at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria, where he contracted tuberculosis. After his recovery and release, Styblo entered Charles University in Prague. During his medical studies the tuberculosis infection acquired in Mauthausen reactivated and he was admitted and treated at Bulovka Hospital in Prague from October 1948 till April 1950. After earning his medical degree in 1950, he returned to Bulovka Hospital to become a chest physician, followed by five years of postgraduate study at the Tuberculosis Research Institute. Obituaries say Styblo studied under Sir John Crofton at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1950s; the IUATLD says Crofton and Styblo worked together in Edinburgh in the early 50s. Crofton said in an interview that they met in 1960 while Styblo was still in Czechoslovakia. Of Styblo, Crofton said:

He was a quiet man, but wonderfully persistent and an enormous worker. Several east African countries had asked for help with tuberculosis and Styblo was sent there. He proved to have a genius for persuading governments that tuberculosis was a major economic problem as well as a public health concern. He was also able to convince them that they could handle diagnosis and treatment through their routine health services, without special tuberculosis clinics and services. Above all he stressed the importance of monitoring patients throughout the course of treatment, as he had seen done in Edinburgh.

Styblo moved to the Netherlands after the unsuccessful Prague Spring, and became a Dutch citizen in 1971. He was still active when he died suddenly on 13 March 1998 at the age of 76; his wife, Lida, predeceased him.

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