Paul Farmer, a giant of public health, dies at 62

Paul Farmer, a physician who devoted his professional life to improving health care in the most destitute corners of the world, a campaign that brought him international renown and was credited with improving if not saving millions of lives, died Feb. 21 in Butaro, Rwanda. He was 62.

His death was announced by Partners in Health, the global health organization that he co-founded in 1987, which said that the cause was “an acute cardiac event while he was sleeping.”