Page 59 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID
P. 59
A Widening Idea of Health: The SAMRC from Creation to Covid
almost on a daily basis’.
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Proposals for joint research projects began to arrive from overseas research bodies,
universities, and medical and pharmaceutical companies, while the number of foreign
visitors to ‘Medicina’ swelled. The best example of the MRC’s new, increasingly
sought-after status in this period was the donation of R30 million by Glaxo to the
MRC to enable it to participate meaningfully in an international research programme
to curb TB by developing novel antibiotics and vaccines against resistant strains of
Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
About to cross the brink towards a new South Africa, with a mixture of excitement
and apprehension the MRC stood on the threshold of an unprecedented era of
challenges and possibilities.
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