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Find your passion, persevere and pursue excellence – honorary doctorate Prof Salim Abdool Karim

19 April 2024 | Story André Damons | Photo Stephen Collett

Prof Salim Karim — Prof Francis Petersen, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Free State (left) and Prof Gert Van Zyl, Faculty of Health Sciences Dean (right) conferred Prof Salim S Abdool Karim honorary doctorate for his ground-breaking research in AIDS and COVID-19. He received the degree PhD in Medical Virology (h.c.) during the Faculty of Health Sciences graduation ceremony.

With the case study of Caprise 256, a young woman in his AIDS study, and her potent antibody that kills HIV, Prof Salim S Abdool Karim, honorary doctorate recipient, conveyed the message of the power of science, knowledge and discovery to motivate the graduates from the Faculties of Health Sciences and Theology and Religion at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Prof Karim, renowned for his ground-breaking research in AIDS and COVID-19, received the degree PhD in Medical Virology (h.c.) during Thursday’s (18 April 2024) graduation ceremony.

From humble beginnings

“It is great honour and privilege to be here and accept this honorary doctorate. I first went to university in 1978 and wanted to study engineering but did not have the money to pay for registration as I come from a poor background. So, I attended classes anywhere. But then I was accepted to study medicine at the University of Natal with a full scholarship and that was the end of my career in engineering.

“From that humble beginning to today where you might have watched me on TV trying to share with you what we know about COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, is a great culmination of a career and I am deeply honoured and privileged to receive this honorary doctorate”, he said shortly after accepting his fifth honorary degree.

Prof Abdool Karim, a clinical infectious disease epidemiologist who is widely recognised for scientific contributions to AIDS and COVID-19, also shared with graduates the last 20 years of his academic journey with an example to illustrate how exciting the acquisition of knowledge and thrill of discovery can be. He talked about his work with AIDS and says it remains one of the world’s greatest challenges. Last year, he said, there were 1.3 million new infections and over 700 000 deaths as a result of AIDS.

Caprisa 256’s antibody

“I have devoted almost 40 years of research to looking for solutions for the AIDS problem and one of the biggest problems we are dealing with is the high rate of HIV, particularly in young girls. In 2003 we started a study to begin to understand why young women are at such a high risk of HIV.

“We enrolled hundreds of young women without HIV. We provided them with all kinds of knowledge to try and keep them HIV-free. Amongst those women we enrolled was participant 256, a young lady and she acquired HIV infection two years later in 2005.”

It would later turn out that this young woman, codename Caprisa 256, has a very special antibody – the kind that can kill a wide range of HIV – which is referred to as a broadly neutralising antibody. It is an antibody researchers tried to ellicit in making vaccine.

It turned out that not only is her antibody able to kill a wide range of HIV, it is a highly potent antibody. After testing and cloning a cell in the blood and growing it in a culture and harvesting the antibody, it was genetically manipulated to get a better antibody.

The Director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (Caprisa), explained that it took two-and-a-half years to manufacture this antibody in the US and the first South African was injected with it in 2020. They enrolled over 1 000 women in a study with half of the women receiving the placebo and half the antibody. The question whether it works, or protects humans from the HIV will only be answered next year, Prof Abdool Karim explained.

The 3 Ps

“What I am trying to convey to you, it’s the power of science, the power of knowledge, the power of discovery and when each of you goes out into the world, I want to leave you with the message that there are three valuable lessons that I have learned in this 20-year journey of Caprisa 256.

“The first one is find your passion, find something that excites you when you wake up in the morning. There will be people that would want to pull you down, you will have to stand firm. You have to show that you are passionate and committed and regardless of the obstacles, you will persevere. Find your passion and persevere. And as you do that, always remember the pursuit of excellence. I know that each of you will bring to this world your own humanity, your own values, and we are in this world, in a situation where we are in desperate need of people who will bring their humanity and their wisdom to bear.”

Prof Francis Petersen, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the UFS, congratulated Prof Abdool Karim on his honorary degree and praised his groundbreaking research on Aids and COVID-19, as well as his exceptional work in medical virology over the years. “Prof Abdool Karim led the South African response to COVID-19, providing us as the public, as well as the government with scientific advice on the virus, new variants, and flattening the curve. Prof Abdool Karim has the ability to easily explain complex science to members of the general public in such a way that they are able to understand it. He played a critical role during the pandemic, and for this as well as for his research on Aids, South Africa is indebted to him.

News Archive

Researcher finds ways to serve justice efficiently

2016-01-07

Prof Monwabisi Ralarala tackled the serving of justice from a linguistic viewpoint.
Photo: Supplied

In 2012, local and international media was saturated with reports of the Eugène Terre’Blanche murder trial. At the judgment, Judge John Horn read a lengthy extensive document, of which three pages were dedicated to voicing his concern about how police officers distort statements in the process of translation. Considering the fact that statements are the entry points to the criminal justice system, Prof Monwabisi Ralarala’s attention was drawn to the negative impact such distortion had insofar as the administration of justice was concerned. Of the three PhD degrees conferred by the University of the Free State (UFS) Faculty of Humanities at the 2015 Summer Graduation, one was in Language Practice with Prof Ralarala’s name on it.

Prof Ralarala’s research interests in language rights, forensic linguistics, and translation studies led him to use the Terre’Blanche trial as the basis for his second PhD case study titled: Implications and explications of police translation of complainants' sworn statements: evidence lost in translation. The doctoral dissertation focused on police stations in the Xhosa-speaking community of Khayelitsha in Cape Town.

Language and the law

When the victim of a crime approaches the South African Police Services (SAPS), the requirements are that a sworn statement be taken. However, as a prerequisite, the narration needs to be translated into English. “The process unfolds in this manner: the complainant or the person laying the charges speaks in a language that they understand, and then the police officers translate that information into English because English is still the de facto language of record,” explained Prof Ralarala.

In the process of translation, the original narrative is lost, and so is some of the evidence. “They [the statements] have to be packaged in a certain way, in the form of a summary. As a police officer, you have to discard all the original narrative and create another narrative which is in English,” added the Associate Professor and Institutional Language Coordinator at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

Evidence is the basis of any court case and, when it is translated by police officers who do not hold the credentials of professional translators, a problem inevitably arises.

Because police officers are not trained in translation, “Some of the statements are filled with distortions, changing of information all together. In some cases, one would come across a case which was initially an assault but then - through the change and transformation, re-narration, retelling of the story by someone else - it becomes a case of attempted murder.”

Considering that a statement determines a suspect’s fate, it becomes all the more important to ensure that accuracy is upheld.

His internal and external supervisors, Prof Kobus Marais and Prof Russel Kaschula from the UFS and Rhodes University respectively stated that his PhD work has been hailed as a gem by international scholars. “According to one international assessor, he has made an exceptional contribution to the humanities and social sciences in general and to the fields of linguistics and translation studies in particular.”

Reshaping the landscape

According to Prof Ralarala, there are huge gaps in the translated versions of statements which create a problem when a ruling is made. Some of the recommendations put forward in his dissertation to bridge that gap are:

• to review the language policy insofar as the criminal justice system is concerned. The languages we speak are official and constitutionally embraced, and they hold the same status as English, hence they need to be used in criminal justice processes;
• to revisit the constitution and review if the provisions made for the Nguni languages are implemented;
• to supplement paper and pen with technology such as tape recorders. Statements can be revisited in cases where a controversy arises;
• to deploy professional translators and interpreters at police stations;
• to design a manual for police officers which contains all the techniques on how a statement should be taken.
• to enforce constitutional provisions in order to reinforce the language implementation plan in as far as African languages are concerned .

These recommendations serve to undo or eliminate any perceived injustices perpetuated and institutionalised by current linguistic and formal practices in South Africa's criminal justice system.

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