SOME of Jamaica’s finest artistes gave a scintillating tribute to Sir George Alleyne, outgoing director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), at the Little Theatre on Monday night.

The tribute also celebrated PAHO’s 100th anniversary and the significant strides made by that organisation in the fight against disease and strengthening of the health sector throughout the Americas.

An appreciative audience, headed by the “man of the moment” Sir George, were treated to a star-studded line-up of Jamaican peformers in a Alvin and Frankie Campbell production organised by Claire Forrester. Messages were delivered by dignitaries either in person or via video broadcast in between performances by Judy Mowatt, Pam Hall, Eric Donaldson, Lord Laro, General Degree and Nadine Sutherland, among others backed by the Fab 5 band.

Among those offering goodwill messages was Dr Manuel Pena of the PAHO Jamaica office. Further on in the programme the audience also heard from Dominican Republic’s minister of public health, Dr Jose Rodriquez-Soldevilla and Caribbean co-ordinator Veta Brown.

All paid respect to Alleyne for guiding PAHO through critical stages of its development and work.

Minister of Health, John Junor, presented Sir George with a citation lauding him as a “hero of Caribbean health”. The citation stated that Alleyne has been serving PAHO since 1945 when he joined the organisation as director of its sanitary bureau. It noted that “despite his exalted position and pressures of daily work, Sir George never wavered from the principles of equity and pan-Americanism which guided his sterling work in the field of health promotion and disease eradication.”

In his address, Alleyne thanked the artistes and organisers of the event for so richly honouring him. Borrowing a Bob Marley imagery, the retiring PAHO director noted that “the same mystic that flows in the air for artistes also flows for health workers”, inspiring them to make the world a better place. He noted that despite the significant strides made in the eradication of diseases such as smallpox, rubella, polio and measle there was still a lot of work to be done in countering HIV-AIDS and to continue upgrading health care throughout the Americas.

PAHO is the regional body of the World Health Organisation (WHO) of the United Nations.