Page 169 - 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

27 Dave Chambers, ‘Excess Deaths Soar to 22,279: More Than Four Times Official Covid-19 Toll’, Sowetan
Live, 29 July 2020, https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-07-29-excess-deaths-soar-
to-22279-more-than-four-times-official-covid-19-toll/.
28 Interview with Professor Glenda Gray, 9 April 2022.
29 Dr Zweli Mkhize cited at https://www.samrc.ac.za/media-release/merits-and-benefits-studying-excess-
deaths.
30 Chambers, ‘Excess Deaths Soar to 22,279’.
31 https://sacoronavirus.co.za/2020/07/25/coronavirus-excess-deaths-cause-panic-prof-glenda-gray/.
32 MRC, AR 2020–2021, p. 132.
33 ‘Mkhize Disbands Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19’, The Citizen, 25 September 2020,
https://www.citizen.co.za/news/covid-19/2362959/mkhize-disbands-ministerial-advisory-committee-
on-covid-19/.
34 Interview with Professor Charles Parry, 6 July 2022.
35 MRC, AR 2020–2021, p. 53.
36 MRC, AR 2020–2021, p. 135.
37 According to them, reliable information, effective communication and informed policy-making are
essential for successful messaging.
38 This began publication in December 2021. A glossy research translation magazine, it explicitly aimed at
‘communicating our science to Southern Africans, illustrating just how we aim to make a difference and
impact on their lives for the better’ (MRC, AR 2021–2022, p. 206).
39 MRC, AR 2021–2022, p. 128.
40 World Health Organization, Outbreak Communication Guidelines (WHO, Geneva, 2005), p. 1.
41 MRC, AR 2020–2021, p. 74.
42 Most explicit was the judgement of the Health Systems Research Unit which concluded that the
Covid-19 epidemic ‘highlighted the extent to which the current highly fragmented health care system
is ill-equipped to meet the health care needs of the entire population and the need for major structural
reform of the South African health system’. But, it went on soberly, ‘At the same time the epidemic
highlighted the challenges that would need to be addressed in order to implement the NHI (National
Health Insurance) and if the NHI is to deliver UHC (Universal Health Care) as intended’ (MRC, AR
2021–2022, p. 158).
43 Dr Portia Mutevedzi of the Vida-Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, cited in MRC,
AR 2020–2021, p. 117.
44 Interview with Professor Glenda Gray, 9 April 2022.
45 Interview with anonymous research unit director, 14 June 2022.
46 Interview with anonymous research unit director, 6 July 2022.
47 Interview with Professor Glenda Gray, 9 April 2022.

Conclusion
1 A very contemporary example of the MRC’s ongoing sensitivity to the constant need to rethink its role
in a changing socio-political context is its decision in 2023 that the landing page of its website and all
PowerPoint slide presentations under its banner would henceforth carry the following statement: ‘The
SAMRC recognises the catastrophic and persisting consequences of colonialism and apartheid, including
land dispossession and the intentional imposition of educational and health inequities. Acknowledging
the SAMRC’s historical role in, and silence on, health and research inequalities during apartheid, the
organisation commits its capacities and resources to continue promotion of equity and dignity in health
and health care.’

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