Created by the South African state in 1969 as the country’s premier institution to conduct medical research, the South African Medical Research Council  has met this objective while at the same time  always seeking to keep on the right side of its primary fund-provider, the government of the day. Thus, initially, during the period of high apartheid, it paid particular attention to the health of whites by giving high priority to diseases like heart disease and porphyria. However, even before the formal end of apartheid in 1994, it had gradually begun to expand the focus of its research to encompass key issues affecting  the bulk of the population too, like malaria, malnutrition and violence, widening its idea of health as it did so.

This richly illustrated history of the SAMRC tracks this accelerating change, placing it in its wider medical, scientific, political and socio-economic healthscape, not least its ups and downs and steps and mis-steps during the eras of apartheid, transition to democracy, post-apartheid, and the pandemics of HIV/AIDS, Covid-19 and TB. The book seeks to give both credit and criticism where they are due in the SAMRC’s 55-year history of medico-scientific innovation and achievement, cul-de-sacs and breakthroughs.

View the complete SAMRC History Book titled “A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research: The SAMRC From Creation To COVID”. (in pdf format or in eMagazine format)