Speaker 1: Well, from time to time, as you know, we's like
Speaker 1: to speak to someone about their career, what they've done,
Speaker 1: how they've made their money, but really their career in
Speaker 1: this time slot on a Monday. And it's my great
Speaker 1: honor to tell you tonight that we're speaking to Professor
Speaker 1: Glenda Gray. You'll know, someone who spent a lot of
Speaker 1: her life working against HIV. She is also, of course,
Speaker 1: you will remember, played a very prominent role during the
Speaker 1: time we were developing vaccines and vaccinations against COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: and someone who's really spent a life trying to help people. Glenda.
Speaker 1: Good evening, and thanks so much for taking the time
Speaker 1: to speak to us tonight.
Speaker 2: Good evening. I hope you can hear me, and to
Speaker 2: your listeners.
Speaker 1: No, thank you, we can. You grew up in Boksburg,
Speaker 1: if Wikipedia is correct. Wikipedia usually is, but not always,
Speaker 1: And I understand you were one of six children. What
Speaker 1: kind of community were you growing up in Bocksburg that time?
Speaker 1: I presume mining was a big factor.
Speaker 2: Yes, so my father worked on the mines at RPM.
Speaker 2: I grew up when I was born in Buxburg, and
Speaker 2: I grew up first of all in Boxsburg and then
Speaker 2: we moved to pacetcolld Mapleton and then we just outside
Speaker 2: Nigel and then we moved to a pace called Scarffin's
Speaker 2: Wrist which is just between Springs and Blackpan. And I
Speaker 2: used to catch a train from Scarffin's Rass station to
Speaker 2: Boxburg East to go to my primary school, Martin School,
Speaker 2: in the morning, so my parents would we would Catsuplaine
Speaker 2: at top A six in the morning and get to
Speaker 2: Boxburg East at seven and then walk to school so
Speaker 2: we could save our money for ice cream.
Speaker 1: Sure, okay, from what I've read, you were pretty keen
Speaker 1: to be a doctor pretty early. Now, there were not
Speaker 1: a lot of female doctors around at the time. What
Speaker 1: was it about being a doctor that was so important
Speaker 1: to you? It clearly mattered, I mean it clearly matters
Speaker 1: to you still. But what was happening around you at
Speaker 1: the time that made you think it was such a
Speaker 1: strong belief as a young person that you wanted to
Speaker 1: be a doctor.
Speaker 2: I just it's hard to really understand that as young
Speaker 2: as form my parents told me that I told them
Speaker 2: that I wanted to be a doctor. I think it
Speaker 2: happened around the time at that stage when we were
Speaker 2: living on a small holding In Mapleton, a car was
Speaker 2: giving birth and there was a breech delivery and they
Speaker 2: had to use a rope to pull the calf out.
Speaker 2: And the vet looked at me and said, oh, I
Speaker 2: wonder you're going to be a vet. I said, no,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be a doctor and look after and
Speaker 2: look look after human beings. So I guess that was
Speaker 2: the Tima articulators. And it was around this breech delivery
Speaker 2: of the of the of this calf.
Speaker 1: Was there something about the power of helping an animal then,
Speaker 1: but helping a human being that the really I mean
Speaker 1: a breach delivery can be very, very dangerous. And yet
Speaker 1: you know, the animals would both have walked away, I
Speaker 1: mean the car for the first time, we walked away healthy.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a real power in watching something like
Speaker 1: that take place.
Speaker 2: Maybe it is a huge power, and I think that,
Speaker 2: you know, just being permitted to you know, I loved
Speaker 2: animals growing up and as I went to school. You know,
Speaker 2: I did one at school and in those days in Boxburg,
Speaker 2: if you did one at school and you were a girl,
Speaker 2: you had become a teacher because you could get adversary
Speaker 2: and know and you didn't have to worry about paying
Speaker 2: for your education. I mean, I told my school Box
Speaker 2: to High that I wanted to be a doctor. That
Speaker 2: kind of smiled endearingly at me, and I guess, you know,
Speaker 2: I was determined, and I applied to It's university, And
Speaker 2: at that stage this was doing an experiment. They had
Speaker 2: decided to diversify who they brought into universe into medical school,
Speaker 2: so there were a lot more women. In my ear,
Speaker 2: they're much more racially diverse, and a lot more people
Speaker 2: that came from in the middle class and working class backgrounds,
Speaker 2: not from private school. So when I went to Box,
Speaker 2: when I got into medical school, you know, it's part
Speaker 2: of a very diverse group. But I also struggled because
Speaker 2: I didn't have a good education. In my later years
Speaker 2: at school, we were short of maths and physics teachers,
Speaker 2: and I struggled. So, like a lot of people coming
Speaker 2: into university from education that is not as good as
Speaker 2: private schools, it takes a while to catch up. So
Speaker 2: for the first year or two at medical school, I
Speaker 2: really felt stupid, and then suddenly in my clinical years,
Speaker 2: I caught up to my peers and was able to
Speaker 2: compete and do as well as people who'd come from
Speaker 2: better schools in Johannesburg.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that, I mean so often it's really
Speaker 1: about getting through the first year or two of university
Speaker 1: and then you start to see people really grasping whatever
Speaker 1: it is and off they go, and that that that
Speaker 1: clearly happened to you. I do want to skip forward
Speaker 1: a little bit because I do want to get to
Speaker 1: some of the other things that you've been involved in.
Speaker 1: But at one point you clearly realized that HIV was
Speaker 1: going to be very, very important in South Africa. And
Speaker 1: when HIV first came on the scene, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of mid nineteen eighties, I don't think many people realized
Speaker 1: how important it was going to be. Did you. Was
Speaker 1: there a moment when you realized what the aides pandemic
Speaker 1: and how many South Africa was going to take, how
Speaker 1: vulnerable we were going to be, how big this thing is.
Speaker 2: I think there were three things that pointed me to
Speaker 2: wanting to do something in HIV. So the first thing
Speaker 2: was I was a student activist during a part eight
Speaker 2: and the organization I worked for, which was Health Workers Association,
Speaker 2: used to organize communities around half issues, and with HIV emerging,
Speaker 2: I worked in that sector, trying to mobilize communities around
Speaker 2: HIV and you know, and work with them. And then
Speaker 2: I went and worked at Paraguay Hospital and working the
Speaker 2: main ICU and the part of thoracic surgeon who was
Speaker 2: in charge of ICU was this brilliant surgeon and I
Speaker 2: could never understand why he wasn't working in the theaters.
Speaker 2: And he was one of the first people in South
Speaker 2: Africa who got HIV and he died in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: and he was a very bright man and very talented,
Speaker 2: and so his death affected me, and knowing and working
Speaker 2: with him and him dying a year later was terrible.
Speaker 2: And then the third thing was as I was working
Speaker 2: in Barible Hospital in the worlds, we saw HIV change
Speaker 2: from an exotic disease in childhood. One in three children
Speaker 2: in our wards having HIV and we were seeing young
Speaker 2: babies dying of HIV. So my decision to do HIV
Speaker 2: research was based on a desire to stop this transmission
Speaker 2: that was happening mother to child, and so I resigned
Speaker 2: as a young pediatrician a study to try and prevent
Speaker 2: RESTMOK transmission. And then I saw the power of data
Speaker 2: and the power of science and how data can drive decisions.
Speaker 2: Particularly around that time we were starting to do work
Speaker 2: which was inteetrovile therapy and at that stage the government
Speaker 2: didn't want to provide the European or as teacher and
Speaker 2: woman to stop HIV stop transmission and we were able
Speaker 2: to show data which won the court case. And then
Speaker 2: I eventually and then I realized how powerful clinical data
Speaker 2: is and how can how can drive policy. So if
Speaker 2: you find something works a TV vaccine or a drug,
Speaker 2: and that can change people's lives because you can prove it,
Speaker 2: I can get the drug and get registered, it can
Speaker 2: get into the clinical care and people's lives can be saved.
Speaker 2: And so doing clinical research is a very powerful way
Speaker 2: of change the world in terms of improving people's lives.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit of a mad time in
Speaker 1: that the people who are making some of these decisions,
Speaker 1: and you talk about the court case that was in
Speaker 1: direct response to the policies of the Embakee government and
Speaker 1: some of the people around them. And I was starting
Speaker 1: to report just towards the end of Montchable Alums amongst
Speaker 1: time as Health minister. But before that there was some
Speaker 1: crosses on at Lamini Zuma. I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is true, Lender, but there is a story about you
Speaker 1: and her in an argument in a bathroom somewhere. Is
Speaker 1: that true?
Speaker 2: That's true? So I think it was nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: and it was at the time when the President was
Speaker 2: presenting the Natural Aids plan, and I got up in
Speaker 2: the audience and said, you know, where is the AZITCH
Speaker 2: for pregnant women? And there was a comment that we
Speaker 2: can't afford az T it's not cost effective. And then
Speaker 2: when now we were during a break, we were in
Speaker 2: the toilet, and I said, it's saving, it's cost savings.
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's cheaper to use a SAT than
Speaker 2: to tweet HIV and and you know this is not
Speaker 2: too talking perhaps that this is too expensive for for
Speaker 2: our countries.
Speaker 1: I've never really understood what was read I mean, and
Speaker 1: Becky still believes it, by the way, he hasn't changed
Speaker 1: his view. Have you ever sort of come up with
Speaker 1: an explanation of why so many people at the time
Speaker 1: believed what they believed. I mean, clearly it was all
Speaker 1: wrong because we've seen life expectancy in South Africa, jumped
Speaker 1: to former President Jacob Zumer's great credit it was the
Speaker 1: one something he did, you know, put ARVs into into
Speaker 1: state hospitals and life expectancy went up by nine years.
Speaker 1: Have you ever sort of come across a rational explanation
Speaker 1: for why so many people were against them.
Speaker 2: I don't understand the denial, And maybe it was a
Speaker 2: combination of you know, of you know, thinking that big
Speaker 2: farmer was trying to make money and that these drugs
Speaker 2: were toxic and it was a way to offload and
Speaker 2: to rectivirals into low middle income country settings. So there
Speaker 2: was this anti colonial approach that may have driven it,
Speaker 2: and a distrust of big farmer who do make profits
Speaker 2: as well. So I think there was a combination of
Speaker 2: that as well as you know, trying to not believe
Speaker 2: that people were dying around you and that there were
Speaker 2: other reasons that was driving the epidemic, like malnutrition or
Speaker 2: solenium deficiency. So people tried to find other reasons why
Speaker 2: children were dying. And we even had the age denialists
Speaker 2: come to Barraguana Hospital and we showed him a child
Speaker 2: with full blown aids and he looked at the child
Speaker 2: and said, oh, this is the worst case of solenium
Speaker 2: deficiency I've ever seen. In my life said this is
Speaker 2: not this is HIV. And so it was a very
Speaker 2: hard time because even though you would take someone to
Speaker 2: award and you'd think that they would be moved by
Speaker 2: fick children, and they were, you know, and these these
Speaker 2: were Western scientists who also had this difiling view.
Speaker 1: It's astonishing that it all happened. You. You mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: how a young woman finishing school at Brocksburg High who
Speaker 1: was very clever would be basically that the path was
Speaker 1: a sort of scholarship to be a teacher. And when
Speaker 1: you said you were looking at medicine, people went sort
Speaker 1: of their dear, you know, you didn't use that phrase,
Speaker 1: but a kind of condescension. And I mean, it's been
Speaker 1: interesting to watch how people have described you over the year.
Speaker 1: So Time magazine said you're one of the world's most
Speaker 1: influential people. Sometimes people have described you as one of
Speaker 1: the most influential women in the world. Some women I've
Speaker 1: spoken to have been recognized in that way say they're
Speaker 1: quite irritating to be described as an influential woman and
Speaker 1: would rather be an influential person. Do you have a
Speaker 1: view one way or another. I would like to think
Speaker 1: that very very few young women who want to be
Speaker 1: doctors are treated in the way you were treated back then.
Speaker 1: Speaking to Professor Glenda Gray this evening in about her
Speaker 1: career and her time as an HIV researcher, pediatrician and
Speaker 1: of course someone who's played an immense role in our society. Glenda,
Speaker 1: I'd like to talk a little bit about COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: And we were all watching what you were doing, what
Speaker 1: everyone in your field was doing, and there was intense
Speaker 1: pressure for a vaccine when it started. When COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: started and you realized we were going into a lockdown
Speaker 1: and all the rest were you confident that they would
Speaker 1: in fact be a vaccine for COVID nineteen.
Speaker 2: So we knew that. So we had been working in
Speaker 2: HIV vaccine field in the moment we knew that there
Speaker 2: was a new circulating strain of coronavirus. A group of
Speaker 2: people got together who started started meeting every Saturday evening
Speaker 2: or just Saturday evening my time, but it was obviously
Speaker 2: in the US in the afternoon, and we started planning
Speaker 2: how we were going to pivot from HIV vaccines to
Speaker 2: COVID vaccines and the platforms we were going to use.
Speaker 2: So I was really lucky. You know. We were on
Speaker 2: course at Bonnie Graham at the v r C, the
Speaker 2: nr H, people from Operation Walk Speed, people like uh
Speaker 2: the Jay and Poor Stuffers from J and J, and
Speaker 2: we started designing trials. At that stage, we only wanted
Speaker 2: to do the trials in the United States, and we
Speaker 2: were working with a wholder of people to try and
Speaker 2: bring the studies into South Africa to be a mighty
Speaker 2: Who's now that dinner at Wards University managed to get
Speaker 2: Taddoc's COVID vaccine trial into South Africa, which the mr
Speaker 2: C funded, and our work to Poor Stuffers at the
Speaker 2: at J and J, who then decided to use South
Speaker 2: Africa and the Americas to do the twenty six Jane
Speaker 2: j COVID vaccine. And he did this because we had
Speaker 2: a relationship. We were working on an HIV vaccine together
Speaker 2: and he was he was very happy to work with
Speaker 2: South Africa to help us move the vaccine program forward.
Speaker 2: So very early on we knew that in South Africa
Speaker 2: we couldn't ourselves develop a COVID vaccine and that we
Speaker 2: would have to partner with international people and international scientists
Speaker 2: to drive our vaccine agenda in South Africa, and so
Speaker 2: I think we're very fortunate to have relationships with Taddocks,
Speaker 2: with Jane j and with Visor. The enabled us to
Speaker 2: do the clinical trials in South Africa. And it was
Speaker 2: very important because obviously we were we had strains that
Speaker 2: were emerging before anyone else and which were different, and
Speaker 2: so we could rapidly show that these vaccines were working
Speaker 2: with new emerging strains of COVID like beta and armor cron.
Speaker 1: I remember I have this memory of watching it live
Speaker 1: on TV, and tell me if I get this right,
Speaker 1: but I think it was you and Linda Gail Becker,
Speaker 1: also a professor of course, carrying the first doses, and
Speaker 1: the first person received a dose was a nurse, Alisa
Speaker 1: Giddy Diosi. Someone else received the second dose, of course,
Speaker 1: that was the president. It must have been a tremendous moment,
Speaker 1: I mean an incredible moment to sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: be leading that in South Africa.
Speaker 2: It was an amazing and swelling moment. We had to
Speaker 2: fly the vaccine down. We were rushing from the airport
Speaker 2: to Carlie cher I was trying to throw the vaccine
Speaker 2: in the ambulance because we knew we had to vaccinate
Speaker 2: the President in ten minutes. He was waiting. He had
Speaker 2: we go to Parliament and we were speeding through Carli
Speaker 2: chair in an ambulance and when we got to College
Speaker 2: Hospital we ran into the pharmacy. The vaccine had been
Speaker 2: thought and we could draw it up and rush to
Speaker 2: vaccinate the President and the nurse and the doctor. And
Speaker 2: you were very important because looking back then, having the
Speaker 2: President I'm agreeing to be vaccinated together with the Minister
Speaker 2: of Health and the healthcare workers was critical for vaccine
Speaker 2: acceptance in South Africa.
Speaker 1: Very quickly, if you can. The major challenge now obviously
Speaker 1: funding is a major challenge and perhaps worse now than
Speaker 1: it's been for some time. But for you is it's
Speaker 1: still medically HIV eight.
Speaker 2: Well for me, obviously HIV curR is an important part
Speaker 2: of my next journey as well as finding an HIV vaccine,
Speaker 2: But we also have an increasing incidence of cancer in
Speaker 2: South Africa, particularly amongst those who are HIV infected. So sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm visited for the next five to ten years to
Speaker 2: be working in those two fields, HIV and cancer.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the time tonight and thank you for
Speaker 1: taking the time, and thank you for everything that you've
Speaker 1: done for our society of the years, you've made such
Speaker 1: an immense contribution. Thank you. That's a pleasure, Professor Glenda Gray.
Speaker 1: They're very sort of humble. It's a pleasure. I mean,
Speaker 1: the things that she's done for our society are just immense.
Speaker 1: On the Money Show this evening