South Africa must build its vaccine production capacity if it wants to be prepared for influenza pandemics such as the current "swine flu" outbreak, a think-tank of virologists heard in Cape Town yesterday. This requires long-term planning, and private-public partnership.

The group, hosted by the African Genome Education Institution, convened to discuss local vaccine production, and how to deal with viral outbreaks in South Africa.

"Well over 100 000 cases (of swine flu) have been detected worldwide. South Africa had 125 cases by Monday this week," said Prof Barry Schoub, from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, "fortunately they’ve all been relatively mild cases." However this figure may be the "tip of the iceberg" since many cases have probably gone unrecorded.

‘It is awe-inspiring to meet him’ the great science Nobel Laureate David Baltimore wrote of Nelson Mandela, as he is ‘one of the world’s few unalloyed heroes’. I had taken Baltimore to meet Madiba as the third speaker in the annual Nelson Mandela Science Lecture, a joint project of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Africa Genome Education Institute. His lecture was on the subject of viruses and it is one of the most lucid accounts on the subject.

Baltimore explained to Madiba that, in addition to giving the lecture, he was in South Africa to attend a meeting of the recipients of Bill Gates’ grand challenge grants, big money to develop what is known as a gene therapy approach to AIDS. We spoke some about HIV but, Baltimore records, Madiba surprisingly to him ‘had no comments on the present Government’s policies.’

SWINE FLU - THE 2009 PANDEMIC: A PARADIGM OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN ACTION

Professor Barry Schoub will deliver the next Darwin Lecture. As Executive Director for the National Institute for Communicable Diseases he has been in the news recently commenting on the formal declaration of the first pandemic of influenza in this country - the H1N1 virus, commonly called Swine Flu.  The influenza virus, one of the most enigmatic of all human viruses, is a perfect model of real-time evolutionary adaptation to selective pressures and as part of the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin lecture series, he looks at the future course of this pandemic by reviewing past pandemics which have some common features but also some very distinctive differences.

Thursday 23 July

Time:    5.30 for 6pm

Venue: New Learning Centre, Anatomy Building, Health Sciences Campus, University of Cape Town, Anzio Road, Observatory

RSVP:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  021 557 0246