Prof Linda-Gail Bekker, co-leader on the Sisonke trial in which half a million health workers received the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, has lashed out at the right wing in America for discrediting Dr Anthony Fauci, the infectious diseases adviser to the US presidency.
Fauci’s e-mails were hacked and released recently, with Republicans lambasting him for “flip-flopping” on Covid-19 research and for being soft on China and attendant theories on the origins of the virus.
Speaking at Cape Town Press Club on Wednesday, Bekker said: “The anti-vax world has been alive through all of this, as have the links to the rightwing aspects of what we saw during the previous [Trump] US administration.
“A lot of money has gone into that campaign to try to discredit Fauci, and that’s because he is the face of science.
“That is how science works – you do research and test theories, and thinking changes. I think he has been pretty honest when he made a few wrong calls, but that is science. He has been consistent.”
Bekker said Fauci had come up against the “anti-science anti-vaxxer world”, which is “well-funded and is very dangerous on many fronts”.
She added: “This is the age-old story of science and conspiracy.”
Bekker also cautioned that we drop the ball on HIV and tuberculosis at our peril as we battle Covid-19.
“It is 40 years this week since HIV was first described in gay men on the west coast of America and we are still looking for a safe prophylactic against the virus,” she said.
“I have spent most of my adult career as a scientist looking for that vaccine.”
In contrast, “we were able to hear about emergency-use approval for the first Covid vaccine about 11 months after the gene of Sars-CoV-2 was first published”.
This she described as “unprecedented and a triumph for humanity”. But she pointed out that $39bn (about R529bn) went into the discovery.
Bekker said the success of Covid-19 vaccines was built on investments in seeking an HIV vaccine. But because of the pandemic, mother-to-child HIV transmission was increasing in parts of Africa, and it was important not to “drop the ball on HIV and TB”.
The pandemic had also raised the ghost of battles for equity that haunted HIV treatment. “This conversation on inequity is one that should happen on a global scale,” she said.
“We see some countries vaccinating children; and here we sit with elderly people and those with a large number of comorbidities who have not been vaccinated yet. This has transported me back 20 years in time to the story of antiretrovirals.”
She recalled how in some countries, HIV-positive people on the brink of death were given ARVs in a desperate bid to save them, while in SA the need was insatiable, but provision was blocked by government denialism.
“We took to the streets for ARVs back then, but it took a lot of blood and sweat and we lost a lot of lives in the meantime,” she said.
This time around, we should keep fighting the good fight for equitable distribution while still applauding the speed at which vaccines were developed, she said.
What had also made things easier this time around, compared to the HIV-denialism era, was the political will. “It is absolutely crucial to have political will and leadership,” said Bekker, adding that even though it had not been “perfect”, it stood in sharp contrast to the response to HIV and TB.
“If we had this kind of attention for HIV and TB, we would all be very thrilled. We have never vaccinated this many adults, so it takes incredible leadership.”
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