Johannesburg, Apr 2 (PTI) South African Deputy President David Mabuza has called on the world to honour the death of internationally-renowned Indian-origin virologist Gita Ramjee by intensifying the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mabuza was reacting to the death of the 64-year-old multiple-award winning South African scientists due to COVID-19 complications after returning from London, where her two sons live.

“In (Ramjee's) honour, we should heed the call to flatten the curve by strengthening our responses to this global pandemic as well as continue the fight to achieve zero new HIV infections,” Mabuza said in a statement.

Mabuza has described Ramjee's death as a “huge blow to the entirety of the health care sector and the global fight against HIV/Aids.” “In her, we have indeed lost a champion in the fight against the HIV epidemic, ironically at the hands of this global pandemic,” Mabuza said.

Ramjee had been highly-acclaimed for her role in research into fighting the HIV virus, particularly among women in South Africa.

“Prof Ramjee was renowned for her work on finding HIV prevention methods that were conducive to the lifestyles, circumstances and perceived risk factors that SA women face as well as in the attempts to find an effective HIV vaccine,” the deputy president said.

“She had received many international accolades including a lifetime achievement award for HIV prevention and was honoured with the Outstanding Female Scientist Award by the European Development Clinical Trials Partnerships for her life's work focused on finding new HIV prevention methods,” Mabuza said.

Ramjee was one of the first women research directors at the Medical Research Council (MRC) in the late 1990s, a few years after the release of Nelson Mandela to become the country's first democratically-elected president.

At the time of her death, Ramjee was the chief specialist scientist and director of the SA Medical Research Council's (SAMRC's) HIV Prevention Research Unit.

“Gita conducted innovative and ground-breaking research to develop a gel that women could use to protect themselves from HIV infection – a method that would be completely in their power and not dependent on the cooperation or permission of their male partners.

“Her distinguished research career resulted in over 170 research publications and numerous accolades,” said Dr Anthony Mbewu, former president of the MRC.

“It is no exaggeration to say that Gita's work in HIV prevention is likely to save millions of young women's lives in the future.”

Originally from Uganda, Ramjee went into exile to India when dictator Idi Amin expelled all Asians from the county in the 1970's.

She later studied in the United Kingdom where she met her husband and settled in South Africa.

Ramjee was also an Honorary Professor at the University of Tamil Nadu, India, and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Ramjee was cremated on Tuesday in her hometown of Durban, highlighting further the challenges of funerals in the Hindu and Muslim communities in South Africa as the national lockdown in South Africa restricts attendance at cremations and burials to just five people.

“It was a particularly traumatic experience for the family, as Gita's husband Pravin (a pharmacist) is in quarantine and her sons could not travel from London due to the lockdown not allowing any foreign flights into the country, so the last rites as per Hindu custom could not be performed by a close relative,” Ashwin Trikamjee, President of the South African Hindu Maha Sabha, told PTI.

Kishore Badal, Chairperson of the Hindu Coordinating Council in Johannesburg, said that families were having difficulty accepting the funeral restrictions but generally understood the need for it to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus.

“Sad as that may be, the current crisis has also renewed the focus among all communities on the ancient and hygienic Hindu tradition of cremation rather burial as the country's municipalities run out of burial space at cemeteries,” Badal said.

The Muslim community, which traditionally buries deceased members on the same day of the death, even late at night at times, is also having to adjust to both delays in releasing bodies after post mortems and the restrictions on numbers at funerals.

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