Ho Wang Lee was a South Korean physician, epidemiologist, and virologist who died on July 5, 2022.
He was born on October 26, 1928, in Sinhung, South Hamgyong Province, Korea but passed on July 5, 2022, in Seoul.
He was the first individual in medical history to be primarily responsible for all three of the following steps: (1) discovering the virus causing human disease, (2) developing a technique of disease diagnosis, and (3) developing a vaccine against the disease.
Ho Wang Lee Death: What Happened To Ho Wang Lee?
He died naturally. Others believe his old age contributed to his passing.
Lee and colleagues produced a formalin-inactivated suckling mouse Hantaan virus vaccine in 1989, which has been licensed for commercial use in South Korea since 1990 under the brand name HantavaxTM.
Lee and his colleagues succeeded in identifying the virus that causes Korean hemorrhagic fever in 1976, and they named it the Hantaan virus.
The finding created quite a stir in the international community of medical professionals, as the hunt to isolate the virus had been ongoing since the early 1950s.
The viral isolation study proved hazardous, and several of Lee’s partners were ill as a result of aerosols created by chronically infected mice.
He was 94.
