Prof Pierre Chaulet "Le quotidien d'Algérie"
Pierre was first a full-time physician, then assistant and finally associate professor at Mustapha CHU teaching hospital in Algiers from 1962 to 1972, before assuming the duties of head of the Department of Phthisiopulmonology at the Béni Messous CHU teaching hospital from 1972 to 1994. From June 1992 to February 1994, he served as special advisor on health matters for the head of the government. He was elected a delegate to the Popular Communal Assembly of Algiers from 1967 to 1971, and Vice President of the National Observatory of Human Rights from 1992 to 1996.
In February 1994, after receiving direct threats from Islamic terrorists, Pierre went into exile, first to Paris, where he was offered a contract by Dr Nils Billo, the new Executive Director of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), then to Geneva, where he worked for four years as a physician for the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Global Tuberculosis Control Programme. He undertook numerous missions to Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where he provided support for planning national tuberculosis programmes and medical training. After returning to Algiers in 1999, he served on the National Committee of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Disease Experts for the Minister of Health, and became a consultant for public health strategies with the National Economic and Social Council, starting in 2006.
During all these years, Pierre never ceased to work for public health and for the improvement of patient access to care. A pioneer in the campaign against tuberculosis in Algeria, he was able to inspire his colleagues with the enthusiasm and determination needed to modernise the National Tuberculosis Programme, which soon became a model internationally. A brilliant instructor, he was among the prime movers in an innovative pedagogical reform of medical education, and trained generations of doctors, specialists and instructors.
Pierre led numerous research projects with his team, particularly on the conduct of controlled clinical trials, in collaboration with the British Medical Research Council team directed by Prof Wallace Fox. This work resulted in the adoption at national level of a 6-month tuberculosis treatment regimen in 1980, and several hundred publications and reports.
He was also a visionary: from 1980, he began to organise standardised care in anti-tuberculosis dispensaries in Algiers for other prevalent respiratory diseases. This line of work was resumed when he joined the WHO, and facilitated the preparation of a new WHO initiative: the Practical Approach to Lung Health. He also contributed to the writing of a variety of technical WHO documents: "Treatment of tuberculosis: guidelines for national programmes" (1997, 2004), "Guidelines for the management of drug-resistant tuberculosis", under the aegis of Prof John Crofton (1996), and "Tuberculosis control in refugee situations: an inter-agency field manual," published in 1997 by the WHO and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). He contributed with other colleagues to the "Tuberculosis – a manual for medical students", written by Nadia Aït-Khaled and Donald Enarson, and published in 2003 by the WHO and The Union.
Pierre became a member of the International Union against Tuberculosis in 1962. In 1965, he helped to create the Algerian Committee for Tuberculosis Control (Comité Algérien de lutte contre la tuberculose), a voluntary non-profit association dedicated to health education, which became a Constituent Member of The Union. In September 1963, when attending the 17th International Conference on Tuberculosis in Rome, he first met Wallace Fox, who was giving a lecture on his experiences in Madras, demonstrating the effectiveness of fully ambulatory treatment for tuberculosis.
Pierre worked with The Union for many years, along with several other outstanding personalities, in particular Dr Annik Rouillon, then Executive Director of The Union, Dr Karel Styblo and Dr Kilpatrick. He was president of The Union's Committee on Treatment, and co-directed the International Course on Tuberculosis Control in Paris and then in Algiers, under the aegis of The Union and the WHO, from 1985 to 1993. He regularly participated in The Union's Africa Region and World Conferences, and in 1999 he received the international Princess Chichibu Memorial TB Global Award, given by the Japanese Anti-Tuberculosis Association (JATA).
In 2004 he organised the XVth Conference of The Union Africa Region in Algiers, with Prof Larbaoui and colleagues. With his lifelong commitment as a militant, with his former students Pierre relaunched the Algerian Committee for the Control of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases (CALT MR - Comité Algérien de Lutte contre la Tuberculose et les Maladies respiratoires), which had ceased to operate during the "black decade". The CALT MR, of which he was named Honorary President, saw the day once again on 24 March 2012, at Bejaia, Algeria.
Pierre and his wife Claudine published their memoirs in 2012, in a book entitled "Le choix de L'Algérie : deux voix, une mémoire" [The choice of Algeria: two voices, one memory]. Only two weeks before he died, Pierre was still working on another book of memoirs which he did not have time to publish, that was to be called "Cinquante ans de médecine."[Fifty years of medicine].
Pierre died on 5 October 2012, and was buried in the Christian cemetery of Algiers on 9 October 2012. Algeria has lost one of its finest sons, a just man among the just, a man of conviction and a monument to public health. He devoted his life to the service of Algeria, fought unceasingly for the freedom of its people and worked relentlessly for the improvement of public health, for access to care for all, and particularly for those most destitute. Kind, modest, generous and considerate, Pierre also had an acute, critical mind, sometimes expressed by a fairly caustic sense of humour.
Pierre's work was vast, and his death is an irreparable loss to his family, his friends and his numerous students and disciples in Algeria, in Africa and world-wide. The Union and all those who knew him and loved him extend their deepest condolences to his family and friends in their time of grief.
Algiers, 7 October 2012
Prof Nadia Aït-Khaled