India’s President to Honor Haffkin for His Anti-cholera, Anti-plague Vaccine

A Russian Jew who created the first successful anti-cholera and anti-plague vaccine and spent more than 22 years in India where he used both vaccines during epidemics raging there in the 1900’s, will be honored at a ceremony in Bombay, it was announced here today. According to Edith Lipsker, founder of the Waldemar Haffkin International Memorial Committee which seeks to “honor Waldemar Haffkin (1860-1930) for the many ways in which he served humanity,” India’s President J.J. Giri will unveil a plaque in Haffkin’s honor on May 24th at the Grant Medical College in Bombay, the city where Haffkin did his “important work.” Miss Lipsker, who is working on a comprehensive biography of Haffkin, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “this pioneer in public health has been completely forgotten by the whole world.” She organized the Waldemar Haffkin International Memorial Committee, of which Nobel Prize winners Prof Rene Cassin and Prof. Ernest B. Chain are members, in 1970. On October 5, 1970, the 40th anniversary of his death, the committee planted a grove in his honor at the Kennedy Peace Forest in the Hills of Judea in Jerusalem. The ceremony was attended by several international scientists and leaders.”