Melahat Okuyan

Career

Melahat Okuyan finished at the top of her class when she earned her veterinary medicine degree from Ankara University in 1946. For the next four years, she worked as an assistant at the Institute for Veterinary Bacteriology and Serology in Pendik, Istanbul. In 1950, she traveled to the United States and completed a Master of Science in General Microbiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1952. After returning to Turkey, she took on the role of chief of laboratory for diagnosis and research at the Institute for Veterinary Control and Research in Bornova, Izmir, where she also earned a diploma in Bacteriology and Epizootiology.

From 1954 to 1956, she served as chief of laboratories at the Central Anatolia Institute for Veterinary Vaccine and Serum in Konya. A scholarship from the British Cultural Centre enabled her to study veterinary virology as a fellow at the University of Cambridge from 1956 to 1957. She then held positions as research organizer and department manager of foreign relations at the Ministry of Agriculture’s Veterinary Affairs Directorate in 1958, followed by a role as an epizootic expert at the Office of Veterinary in Ankara from 1960 to 1961.

Over the next two years, she established a laboratory for oncovirus research at the National Institutes of Health, funded by the American Institute for Cancer Research. In 1964, she returned to Turkey as a lecturer and researcher at Hacettepe University Medical School, where she set up another oncovirus lab and earned a Doctor of Science degree in 1966. She became an associate professor in November 1970 and later a full professor of Microbiology at Dokuz Eylül University’s Faculty of Medicine in Izmir, a position she held from 1980 until her retirement in 1991.

HIV/AIDS activist

In 1986 Okuyan pioneered the establishment of a Center for Information on AIDS and HIV Test in Turkey. The following year she became a member of the National AIDS Commission. In 1991 she formed the Association for the Fight Against AIDS in İzmir with a group of volunteers, serving as its chairperson. The association developed projects and opened branches in various Turkish cities.

In 1993 it gained nonprofit status by governmental decree. Okuyan personally performed anonymous HIV testing. In 2004 she proposed establishing male brothels for homosexuals and cross-dressers to improve public health, arguing that regular health checks, already required for sex workers in brothels, should be accessible to these groups. In 2006 she and her associates founded clubs for Fight Against Drugs and AIDS in İzmir, Istanbul, and Diyarbakır as part of a Peer Education Project.

In 2008 she reported 2,920 people with AIDS in Turkey as of 2007 (2,028 males, 892 females). In 2009 the project was introduced to 25 schools in İzmir. The association could not obtain financial support from local administration and faced fundraising difficulties because donors were reluctant to be named, leading to its closure in 2010. At age 85 Okuyan continued giving support and advice on AIDS via the internet and social media.

Did You Know?

• She was schooled at the age of five and a half.
• She was married and had two children, a son and a daughter.