Dr. Blasio Vincent Oriedo, in full Dr. Blasio Vincent Ndale Esau Oriedo (born 15 September 1931, Ebwali Village in Bunyore, Kenya Colony—died 26 January 1966, Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya) was an African epidemiologist and a parasitological scientist known for his contributions to tropical medicine and work to stem disease epidemics in colonial and postcolonial Kenya, the countries of East and Central Africa, and the Sudan.Ngure, Peter K., et al. "A review of leishmaniasis in Eastern Africa." Journal of Nanjing Medical University 23.2 (2009): 79-86.World Health Organization. "Report of a meeting of the WHO Expert Committee on the Control of Leishmaniases, Geneva 22–26 March 2010."Heyneman, D. "Immunology of leishmaniasis." Bulletin of the World Health Organization 44.4 (1971): 499.
Oriedo was a patron of academic, healthcare, and socioeconomic development in East and Central Africa. He developed an interdisciplinary approach that connected the struggle for political freedom in Kenya with fully integrated healthcare, intellectual, socioeconomic, and civil infrastructures especially in the rural regions that bore the brunt of disease epidemics and their socioeconomic and sociocultural consequences. He embraced a revolutionary epidemiological perspective towards the economic and intellectual consequences of disease or public health strategy across the East and Central African region. He served as a member of Tom Mboya's interdisciplinary economic development advisory team from 1965 until his death in January 1966.The Government of Kenya, Colonial and Postcolonial, Microfilm Collection; Kenya National Archives: Correspondence and Reports 1930–
1970.Kenya National Assembly Official Record: "The official records of the proceedings of the Legislative Council of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, the House of Representatives of the Government of Kenya and the National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya." 1964 (Hansard)Mboya, Tom. A development strategy for Africa: problems and proposals. Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, 1967.
Oriedo was one of the forces behind the late 1950s–early 1960s US academic scholarship programme for East African students— The Kennedy Airlift.
Biography Oriedo was born to Esau Khamati Oriedo (d. 1 December 1992) and Evangeline Olukhanya Ohana Analo-Oriedo (d. 11 July 1982), both from the western Kenya's Luhya ethnic group of the Bantu lineage. His father was a Kenyan politician (freedom fighter and colonial-era political detainee, district representative and once chairman of the North Nyanza Local Native CouncilKENYA. Committee on Native Land Tenure in the North Kavirondo Reserve. Committee on Native Land Tenure in the North Kavirondo Reserve. Socioeconomic & Political History. Nairobi: Government Printer, 1932.), an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a veteran of World Wars I and II. He was a Christian who challenged early white Christian missionaries in East Africa to embrace the African cultures as congruent with the Christian credo.Hastings, Adrian. The Church in Africa, 1450–1950. London: Oxford University Press, 1995.Anderson University and Church of God. "Church of God (Anderson, Ind.) Missionary Board. Missionary Board correspondence. [c. 1915]-1985." Anderson University and Church of God Archives. Anderson: Anderson University and Church of God Archives, 1994.
He received early education at government and mission schools, and sat, successfully with distinction, for the Cambridge School Certificate in 1946 at the former Government African School at Kakamega in North Nyanza (present-day Kakamega High School at Kakamega in western Kenya).Were, Gideon S. "The Making of Kakamega High School: A Tribute to Harold Arthur Waterloo Chapman." Transafrican Journal of History 17 (1988): 186-192.Mukudi, Edith Simba. African contribution to the growth of secular education in North Nyanza, 1920-1945. Diss. 2012.His father, Esau Oriedo, as a district representative to the Local Native Council (LNC) of North Nyanza — aka North Kavirondo District Council — was an ardent advocate for literacy and higher education, and a key protagonist in the founding of the school under the auspices of the North Kavirondo District LNC in 1932.
He was the first and the youngest native East and Central African epidemiologist in the field of tropical medicine and infectious diseases—both as researcher and a clinical practitioner—in the spread, control, and eradication of infectious agents. His parasitological epidemiology medical research and resulting treatments have received global acclaim and application.Adler, S. "Leishmania." Advances in parasitology 2 1964: 35-96. He supported indigenous medical research and the dissemination of homegrown scientific medical information. He foresaw this informational approach as an effective and dynamic forum for interchange of knowledge and viewpoints amongst various indigenous healthcare communities and their counterparts abroad.. His epidemiological medical research of the East African Leishmaniasis or kala-azar (black fever) has bred critical knowledge for worldwide use in both private and public health sectors, and civil societies.ORIEDO et al. "STUDIES IN EPIDEMIOLOGY OF EAST AFRICAN LEISHMANIASIS. 3. IMMUNITY AS A DETERMINANT OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION." JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE 70.1 (1967): 1.Southgate, B.A., Oriedo, B.V.E., and Manson-Bahr, P.E.C. "Studies on the vector of kala-azar in Kenya." Proceedings International Congress of Entomology. Ed. Paul. Freeman. London, 1964.Oriedo, BVE and BA: Manson-Bahr, P.E.C. Southgate. "Entomology of the sand fly vectors of Leishmania donovani in East Africa, Workshop." The XII International Congress of Entomology. Ed. Royal Entomological Society London. London: Royal Entomological Society of London, 1964.Southgate, BA, Oriedo, BV, and Manson-Bahr, P E C "Studies in the epidemiology of East African leishmaniasis. 3. Epidemiological and Immunity In Kala-Azar." Transactions of the Royal Society of tropical Medicine and Hygiene 1961.Manson-Bahr, P. E. C., R. B. Heisch, and P. C. C. Garnham. "Studies in leishmaniasis in East Africa: IV. The Montenegro test in kala-azar in Kenya."Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 53.5 (1959): 380-383.D'Oliveira Júnior, Argemiro, et al. "Asymptomatic Leishmania chagasi infection in relatives and neighbors of patients with visceral leishmaniasis." Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 92 (1997): 15-20. In 1964 he attended, as an invited expert panelist, the XII International Congress of Entomology at London, United Kingdom.The XII International Congress of Entomology. London, United Kingdom; 8–16 July 1964.
He was a supporter of health care as a basic human right long before the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration proclamation.WHO. Declaration of Alma Ata. International conference on primary health care, Alma-Ata, USSR, 6–12 September 1978 Geneva: WHO, 1978. In 1960 he directed a healthcare and hygiene strategy of tactical, strategic, operational, and performance indexing; a short-term and long-term planning strategy based on the application of preventative modalities that helped shift the medical science paradigm—in East Africa—away from the undue emphasis on curative means, and more so towards a balanced approach. That which effectually integrated strategic epidemiological knowledge with tactical, operational, and situational curative approaches.The colonial medical service in British East Africa. British Colonial Medical Services, LondonThe Government of Kenya "Colonial Medical Service Microfilm Collection; Kenya National Archives: Daily Correspondence and Reports 1930-1967." (2015).
He promoted and nurtured coordinated approaches, amongst healthcare practitioners and related bodies, to facilitate the most effective seamlessly integrated dispensary and operations of public health and other civic and societal welfare services. As of 1950 until his abrupt and inexplicable death in 1966, he is credited with stemming the tide of numerous endemic and pandemic diseases in the East and Central African regions and the Sudan. The following are examples of those feats.The Kenya Colony and Protectorate, Annual Medical Report, 1952, Nairobi, Government Printer, 1953.
A confidante of Tom Mboya, he allied with Mboya to successfully champion US education opportunities for East African Students.
He was a patron of academics, healthcare, and socioeconomic development in East Africa. While fighting disease epidemics across the region he remarked on the decrepit infrastructure in large the areas of the country to the detriment of socioeconomic, healthcare, and intellectual progress.Kitching, Gavin N. Class and Economic Change in Kenya: The making of an African petite bourgeoisie 1905-1970. Yale University Press, 1980. This experience led him to crusade for rural citizens. He declined a career in politics, despite being lobbied by his associates enter politics.In a communiqué, he cautioned the nascent Kenyan political cadre of the liberation movement against a gullibility towards an impetuous independence—opining that such a move, meagerly developed civil institutions, could lead to a vacuous independence and vassalage statehood, unless wholesome tactical and strategic civil institutional infrastructures were in place to remedy the situation at the time of independence. He argued that Africans had yet to achieve sufficient "critical-to-success" intellectual, healthcare, and socioeconomic resources and infrastructure for a comprehensive wholesome liberation—Africanized self-governance. During his epidemiological research and fight against disease epidemics, in the rustic and urban regions across East and Central Africa, he had come face-to-face with the abominable high rates of poverty among the native populations those regions, the economic hardship that was a consequence of the repugnantly undue health care and hygienic woes which most aboriginals endured.Oriedo, BV "Bully". Unpublished Personal Memoirs and Letters of Blasio Vincent Oriedo 1954–January 1966. Later he served, at Tom Mboya's behest, as a member of Mboya's multidisciplinary economic development team from 1965 until his death in January 1966.The Government of Kenya "Development plan for the period from 1st July 1964 to 30th June 1970" Kenya Economic Policy, Nairobi, Government Printer, 1964 [microform].
He was a staunch opponent of fraud and abuse of the public trust; utterly stubborn—an uncompromising scrupulous—and demonstrative disdain for and impatient towards ineptitude. He was an outspoken critic of vice by those in power; thus, his policies became anathema to the rulers of colonial Kenya, and most postcolonial bureaucrats and political elites of the embryonic independent Kenya. In 1965, upon his return from a conference in the Netherlands and other official engagements in Europe, he summarily terminated the employment of several expatriates and native personnel for graft, ineptitude, and absconding from duty.Republic of Kenya. "Notice of Appointments and Personnel Changes: Public Health and Medical Officers, Ministry of Health and Housing." The Kenya Gazette. Nairobi: The Government of The Republic of Kenya, 1966. His actions met with ad hominem assaults from a cadre of bureaucrats and political elites; nevertheless, he stood his ground and refused to be intimidated into rescinding the edicts. His view was that these public servants worked solely to enrich and empower themselves.