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One jab for man, hope for mankind
Nalisha Kalideen. 05 November 2003. The Star. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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It was a historic moment - but all Father Kieran Creagh felt was a pinprick. Yet that little jab could change lives all over the planet.
On Tuesday, the priest from the St George's Catholic church in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, became the first volunteer to receive a vaccination in the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
It was a day he had started with trepidation. But it was the words of an HIV-positive woman working in Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital's perinatal HIV research unit (PHRU) that had given him the impetus to happily go through with his agreement.
Moments before Creagh received the vaccine, the unit's HIV/AIDS Counsellor, Michelle Mabunda, 20, who is HIV-positive, had pulled him into her office to thank him for what he was doing.
"I thought it was more preparation for tests. She said she wanted to thank me for what I was doing. Then all the nervousness went away. I felt that this girl is what it's all about."
Mabunda later described what the moment meant. "It's putting extra hope on my shoulders. People ask: Why aren't we starting a vaccine for HIV-positive people? But I say it's a start, let's prevent new infections first."
The international organisation HIV Vaccine Trials Network is conducting trials here and in the US. The equivalent first phase of the US trial began in July.
The first phase is to assess the safety of the vaccine and measure the immune response it generates. The vaccine being tested is the AlphaVax replicon Vector, which utilises parts of a weakened strain of the Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus and a gene from a South African strain of HIV to deliver the vaccine to the immune system. As a control, not all the vaccinations are real, to provide a comparison.
Later this week, more volunteers will receive the vaccine. Once the safety of the substance has been assured, the next phase, to broaden the immune response, will start.
Creagh was a willing candidate, but was nervous from the moment he woke up - wondering if yesterday was going to be the last day of his life.
"I thought, 'Oh my God, today is the day'. I was a bit nervous and maybe a bit dramatic," Creagh said.
However, earlier in the morning, the thought popped into his head that if it was his last day, maybe he should write a letter of goodbye to someone. But he dismissed it almost immediately.
Instead he dressed in a pair of worn blue jeans and a blue T-shirt, had his breakfast of tea and toast, found a priest to hear his confession, visited the crèche at the church and then got into his car and drove to Johannesburg.
He drove more slowly than usual, almost willing himself not to arrive at his destination.
"It was a lot like this was happening to someone else and not me. The real heroes are those living with HIV and getting on with their lives. I wasn't proud of what I was doing. I'm not a hero, but I am proud to be part of this. I was humbled," Creagh said.
When he arrived at the PHRU building at the hospital, where the trials will be held, the unit was so quiet that Creagh thought he had arrived a day early.
"I felt a bit nervous. There were butterflies in my stomach. But it was strange, the place seemed empty and I was not sure what was happening. I thought I'd got the day wrong," Creagh said.
But it wasn't the wrong day - and it was a day that Dr Efthyia Vardas and Dr Glenda Gray and their staff had been preparing for for four years. And, like most great days in history, no one could tell in advance whether it would happen. Gray, the national principal investigator for the HIV Vaccine Trial Network in South Africa and co-director of the PHRU, said that after a string of minor mishaps, she had been concerned that everything would not go ahead as planned.
"Last night we were here until 9pm, trying to get onto the HIV Vaccine Trial Network website to issue a random number for Father Kieran (Creagh). It's a random process and we don't know until the last moment which vaccine vials will be allocated to him," Gray explained.
That night it almost seemed as if they weren't going to be successful, and that the big day would have to be postponed. But in the end they were able to obtain a number.
Vardas, director of the HIV vaccine division of the PHRU, got another shock on Tuesday when the pharmacist in charge of the vaccine vials called her to say that one vial was missing. But in fact it wasn't missing, and the matter was sorted out.
The moment Vardas gave Creagh his injection was one of intense emotion. The entire staff from the unit had crammed into the observation room, all 30 of them straining to watch Vardas inject Creagh.
"I felt very honoured... but I felt nervous. Father Kieran sat down, and I had to get the vaccine out of the cooler. You draw the vaccine out of the vial with one needle and inject the patient with another."
"When I was changing the needles, I couldn't get the cap off. I thought, 'I have done this thousands of times but now when I take this off I might inject myself by mistake'," Vardas laughed, remembering her unfounded fears.
She then rubbed Creagh's arm and gave him the injection, her body trembling at that moment. As she did so, Mabunda rushed out of the room in tears.
"I was standing beside him and I had a good view... The moment Dr Vardas took the cap off the needle, he (Creagh) joked, 'Okay, I give up!'"
"I glanced at the needle to check if the vaccine was in there. It's a transparent substance," Mabunda said. When Mabunda was satisfied that Creagh had received the injection, she rushed to the ladies' room, where she burst into tears of relief.
Creagh said he had decided to participate in the trial because he knows many HIV-positive people and has seen some of them die as a result HIV/AIDS.
"I don't want anyone else to live that way. I don't want more young people to get infected." |
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