Sunday Times, South Africa - March 28, 1999
Janet Heard
The outspoken and provocative professor, who stirred up a hornet's nest after his position as deputy vice-chancellor of Wits University was challenged, says he has not found a need to make many waves as he goes about his task of transforming the 30-year-old council.
"The reason is that MRC has already undergone tremendous transformation in the past five years," he says.
Makgoba, 47, who has a doctorate, was chairman of the Medical Research Council's board for four years before becoming its president.
He is proud of the progress the council has made, although major changes approved this month are to be implemented soon.
"It has been my experience - and that of many other black Africans - that it is far easier to transform a predominantly Afrikaans institution than an English institution."
The Afrikaner is the "only white man who has embraced Africa as his home and therefore he has embraced change", says Makgoba. "The English have one foot in Europe and the other in Africa. They are the most race-conscious people in the world."
A notable change in the council, which used to be a predominantly Afrikaans institution linked to Stellenbosch University, has been in the demographic composition of its staff.
Within 10 years, the percentage of black staff has risen from 22 percent to 55 percent. In addition, 67 percent of the 430 staff members - of whom 236 are scientists - are women.
A scholarship programme introduced in 1993 has also seen a shift: in 1993, 57 percent of scholarships were awarded to whites and 43 percent to blacks; in 1996, 14 percent went to whites and 86 percent to blacks.
Makgoba, a leading proponent of Thabo Mbeki's African renaissance ideology, has placed race and human rights issues firmly within the philosophy of the council's transformation programme.
"I am taking the MRC into the new millennium - which for me, as a scientist, is the year 2001."
Achieving this entails Africanising health research, Makgoba says.
A strategic business plan, which he has brainstormed with staff, is to be implemented next month.
He intends to lead the institution away from its ivory tower image and is determined that research should focus on primary health.
"Old programmes that do not address national health priorities, that are not excellent, not relevant and not competitive, and that do not generate resources or build capacity will go."
Makgoba declines to give details, but adds, again without wishing to elaborate, that there is "dead wood that will also have to go".
His overriding objective is to establish human rights in research.
"The country has had 300 years of colonial apartheid. The litany of human rights transgressions during those years is encapsulated in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report."
The medical profession and research bodies were party to these transgressions - sometimes unintentionally, Makgoba says.
His research priorities are HIV/AIDS, tele-medicine, tuberculosis, malaria, genetics and disease, women's health and ethics.
"Our medical profession is riddled with unethical behaviour".
He believes research should be participative. For example, people with AIDS should be drawn into research "not only at the end for clinical trials, but also in the beginning".
He is upbeat about the council's capacity to be at the cutting edge of research, despite its limited government budget of R86-million and R34-million from partnerships with international organisations.
For Makgoba, the three most exciting the projects are:
* Clinical trials of a breakthrough three-in-one drug for TB, "which kills more people than AIDS does in South Africa".
* Research into an African plant that is used in traditional healing and which has been found to have substances that inhibit the TB micro-bacteria and the malaria parasite.
* A R52-million link-up with US researchers to find an HIV vaccine specifically for sub-Saharan Africa.
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