Page 103 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID

A Widening Idea of Health: The SAMRC from Creation to Covid

Professor Salim Abdool Karim (MRC’s president, 2012–2014) at a CAPRISA press
conference in Johannesburg, 2014, announcing publication of research in Nature on
neutralizing antibodies. Left to right are Dr Steve Smith (US Health Attaché), Dr
Michelle Mulder (director of MRC’s GIPD and SHIP), Mr Derek Hanekom (Minister
of Science and Technology), Karim, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi (Minister of Health).

This meant that from day one he was in a hurry. He therefore wasted little time
before putting forward a comprehensive revitalization programme of his own after
hearing the views of a wide array of staff. At bottom, his programme sought to restructure
and reorient the Council so that it was stable financially, efficient in its operation and
fit for the purpose of improving the health of the nation through again performing
excellent medical research and giving the lead as a ‘powerhouse’ to all such research
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in South Africa. In the words of Karim’s ally Professor Lizo Mazwai, the chair of the
MRC’s new Board (to which the most captious members of its predecessor were not
reappointed), revitalization aimed ‘to reclaim and restore the national and international
status of the MRC as the premier national research body on health issues’. 4
Towards this target Karim drove a programme of radical surgery single-mindedly,
even ruthlessly. Topmost priority was given to research on the country’s ten biggest
causes of death, thereby decisively altering the parameters for intramural research at
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the MRC. ‘If we want to have an impact, save lives in South Africa, then we must do

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