Ernest Steven Monteiro

Ernest Steven Monteiro qualified at Singapore’s King Edward VII College of Medicine in 1929 and built a career treating infectious and nutritional disease. His work included vitamin B1 treatment of severe beriberi and the production of diphtheria antitoxin during the Japanese occupation, when supplies had run out. He later held the chair of clinical medicine and became dean of the medical faculty. ¹

Monteiro pressed for compulsory diphtheria immunization and helped organize the use of oral polio vaccine during Singapore’s 1958 outbreak. The campaign reached 250,000 children. He subsequently entered diplomacy, serving in Cambodia and then as Singapore’s ambassador in Washington from January 1969 to September 1976, with additional accreditation to Brazil. ^{2, 3}