As a girl Prof Glenda Gray watched a vet save a cow and calf during a difficult birth, and knew she wanted to be a doctor
Professor Glenda Gray is one of those people who knew what they wanted to do from a very young age.
Glenda Gray _ Glenda Gray, South African pediatrician acclai… _ Flickr
You may recall Prof. Gray for her unwavering work in developing the COVID-19 vaccine in South Africa, as well as her dedication to helping children with HIV.
But most of all, Prof Glenda Gray has dedicated her life to helping people, says Stephen Grootes. He chats with her on The Money Show's 'How I Make My Money' about her life and career.
Listen to the interview below:
Her dad worked in the mines, and she grew up on the East Rand, being one of six children.
"As young as four, my parents told me that I told them I wanted to be a doctor."
Prof Glenda Gray
She says it all started when they were living on a smallholding in Mapleton.
"A cow was giving birth and it was a breached delivery, and they had to use a rope to pull the calf out -- and the vet looked at me and said: one day are you going to be a vet? And I said, no I'm going to be a doctor and look after human beings."
Prof Glenda Gray
She explains that later, when she applied to study medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), it was a period when the institution was introducing greater diversity. There were more women and racially diverse students in her class.
Skip forward to her career in the 1980s, and she realised the severity and seriousness of the AIDS pandemic.
"I was a student activist during apartheid, and the organisation I worked for which was the Health Workers Association, used to organise communities around health issues.And with HIV emerging I worked in that sector mobilising communites around that."
She then worked in the main ICU at Baragwanath Hospital, and the cardiothoracic surgeon in charge was brilliant. He was one of the first people in SA to get HIV/AIDS, and he died in 1988. The death of this talented and clever man deeply affected her, as well as seeing more and more children dying of the disease in the hospital.
"So, my decision to do HIV research was based on the desire to stop this transmission that was happening from mother to child."
Prof Glenda Gray
She realised doing clinical research is a powerful way of changing the world and improving people's lives.
She describes her difficult interactions with the health minister at the time, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, during the Mbeki era of AIDs denialism.
She also describes how, in the early days of COVID-19, she and a group of people worldwide came together and began meeting every Saturday to plan how to shift from HIV vaccines to COVID vaccines.
She says they started designing trials - at first only in the USA.
"We were trying to bring these trials into South Africa."
Prof Glenda Gray
And they succeeded. It was then decided to use the Americas and South Africa to do the J&J COVID-19 vaccine trials.
This resulted in those early clinical trials being done in South Africa, she explains.
Please scroll up to listen to the rest of her moving and insightful interview.