Durban - Like many throughout the country we are shocked and devastated to hear of the tragic passing of Professor Gita Ramjee. She died of a terrible virus that has caused misery and grief around the world; yet she herself fought tirelessly against another virus, HIV, that has killed millions in South Africa and overseas.
Gita was one of the first women research directors at the Medical Research Council (MRC) in the late 1990s, a few years after the liberation of the country in 1994.
At the MRC’s HIV Prevention Research Unit, she quickly established herself as one of the foremost HIV clinical trial investigators, not just in South Africa, but throughout the world. Her groundbreaking research focused on finding new technologies that women could use to protect themselves from HIV infection.
Gita conducted innovative and groundbreaking research to develop a gel that women could use to protect themselves from HIV infection – a method that would be completely in their power and not dependent on the cooperation or permission of their male partners.
She garnered massive research grants from the most prestigious clinical research funders in the world including the National Institutes of Health of the USA, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the British MRC. With these funds she was able to gather together teams of hundreds of scientists and research assistants who recruited women in their thousands to participate in these clinical trials.
Her distinguished research career resulted in over 170 research publications and numerous accolades.
After years of arduous work and many setbacks, her tireless efforts were rewarded when in the ASPIRE Trial of 2016 a dapivirine microbicide ring safely reduced the risk of HIV infection by 27 percent in the study population overall and by about 54 percent in the follow-on Open Label HOPE study. It is no exaggeration to say that Gita’s work in HIV prevention is likely to save millions of young women’s lives in the future.
Through these massive research efforts Gita over the years launched and developed the research careers of hundreds of young people – mainly African women from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Gita will never be forgotten by those who benefited from her unstinting dedication to the cause.
She has been taken away from her family and our country far too soon; though we rejoice that she was able to see her grandchild in London shortly before she died.
* Dr Anthony Mbewu former president of the Medical Research Council (MRC
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