Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - August 31, 2003
Claire Keeton
Now the pioneering pair, based at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, have won a prestigious award for HIV/Aids care.
The International Association of Physicians in Aids Care has honoured them and Ugandan physician Dr Peter Mugyenyi with Hero in Medicine awards and will pay tribute to them in Chicago next month.
Previous heroes in other categories include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Aids activist Zackie Achmat and former US President Bill Clinton.
The directors of Wits University's internationally respected Perinatal HIV Research Unit said their first achievement was to find an affordable way of reducing the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission and making it operational at Baragwanath.
"Every pregnant woman in Soweto has access to counselling and testing and Nevirapine, if HIV positive," says McIntyre.
Nevirapine reduces the risk of HIV transmission to around 10%.
Gray said their next step was to embark on adult trials for antiretroviral therapy. "We were criticised and told it would never be affordable, available or implementable but we argued we needed the experience for when it would be," she said.
South Africa's Health Ministry is working on a plan to make antiretrovirals available to HIV and Aids sufferers.
Vaccine
"The third achievement is our HIV vaccine trials and we hope to start injecting volunteers in the next few weeks," said Gray.
Born in Boksburg, Gray specialised as a paediatrician at Wits University, and started work at Baragwanath in 1988.
"At that time HIV was an exotic disease," she said. "Now over 50% of children here are HIV- positive."
Gray, 40, is expecting her third child soon. She has two girls, aged 10 and 6, and her partner Jacobus Kloppers is an artist.
McIntyre, 47, grew up in Harare and studied there, before moving to South Africa in 1984. He specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology and in 1994 was the founding co-director of Wits University's Reproductive Health Unit, also based at Baragwanath.
McIntyre and Gray were honoured last year with the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights for their work in preventing perinatal HIV transmission.
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