Baku, April 15, 2026 (Khyber Mail): Azerbaijan on Wednesday marked the remembrance day of prominent scholar and ophthalmologist Zarifa Aliyeva, honoring her lasting contributions to medical science and research.
It has been 41 years since the passing of the distinguished academician, who died on April 15, 1985, in Moscow. Her remains were later reinterred in 1994 at the Alley of Honor in Baku, where she rests alongside her father.
Born on April 28, 1923, in the Sharur district of Nakhchivan, Zarifa Aliyeva graduated from the Azerbaijan State Medical Institute named after Nariman Narimanov in 1947. She began her career as a scientific researcher at the Azerbaijan Scientific Research Institute of Ophthalmology and went on to hold several key academic positions.
Over the course of her career, she served as associate professor, professor, head of the laboratory of occupational pathology of visual organs, and later headed the ophthalmology department at the Azerbaijan State Advanced Training Institute for Doctors from 1982 to 1985.
Zarifa Aliyeva played a pioneering role in the development of ophthalmology in Azerbaijan. She conducted extensive research on trachoma, a disease that was once widespread in the country, and was among the first in global medical practice to study occupational eye diseases, particularly those affecting workers in the chemical and electronics industries.
Her scientific legacy includes 12 monographs, textbooks and teaching materials, nearly 150 research papers, as well as one registered invention and multiple innovation proposals. Among her notable works are studies on therapeutic ophthalmology and the fundamentals of iridodiagnostics.
She was also actively involved in professional organizations, serving as a member of the presidium of the All-Union Society of Ophthalmologists, the Soviet Peace Defense Committee, and the board of the Azerbaijan Ophthalmology Society, in addition to contributing to the editorial board of a leading Moscow-based ophthalmology journal.
In recognition of her contributions to medical science, she was awarded the prestigious M.I. Averbakh Prize of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences in 1981.