Mayor Kai Wegner, Governing Mayor of the City of Berlin,
Professor Dr Gerald Haug, President of the Virchow Foundation for Global Health,
Barbel Bas, President of the German Parliament, and Patron of the Virchow Prize 2023,
Members of the Virchow Foundation Board,
Prof Leke’s family,
Excellencies, colleagues, partners, and friends,
It is a great honour and pleasure to be back in Berlin, to deliver what in the tradition of my Xhosa forebears and family in South Africa would be called the praise poem – isibongo, or laudation - to honour an African woman whose work, like that of Rudolf Virchow, has pushed the boundaries of global health, immunology and infectious disease control with a relentless focus on equity and fairness — Rose Gana Fomban Leke.
I’ve had the enormous privilege of working closely with Prof Leke in the critical role she has played in polio eradication, and in the Independent Advisory Group I established when I took office as the WHO Regional Director in Africa. But our contribution to improving the health of African people has benefited from her broad, multifaceted engagement in global health.
I echo the sentiments of those who have spoken before me: Mayor Wegner, President Bas, Prof Haug, Dr Tedros, and, of course, Master of Ceremony, my sister Dr Yodi Alakija. Today’s laureate is a scientist whose work cuts across the global, regional, and national levels; and encompasses scientific research, policy recommendation, political mobilisation, implementation, evaluation and learning, and very importantly, engagement of communities.
Prof Rose Leke — A dedicated teacher, rigorous scientist, prolific researcher, innovator, straight but humble adviser, compassionate heart, defender of marginalized groups, polio eradication champion, malaria control fighter, driver of gender equity and mentor to women and girls, and, above all, a devoted family member—she embraced these various responsibilities, her life’s work, with enormous positive energy, rigour, enthusiasm, humour, optimism and compassion.
She has served on numerous WHO advisory committees at the global and regional levels, on diseases that are particularly prevalent in Africa, where investment in intervention tools has been a challenge for decades, and the best scientific work to make breakthroughs is critical – like malaria, lymphatic filariasis, and onchocerciasis.
Prof Leke led the African Regional Certification Commission for many years and determinedly supported our polio eradication goals.
She was not shy about getting her hands dirty to get the job done.
Rose did not sit around in air-conditioned rooms in the capitals of developed countries or Africa, but ventured deep into the field to engage with underserved communities, local leaders and health workers, bringing that first-hand experience to policymakers at the national, regional and global levels.
Her constant message was, “We need to finish the job.”
Her resolve and consistency have inspired me, our WHO team, health ministers and experts in our countries. Once, we noticed a spike in polio cases and called her, “Prof, we have some bad news...” She responded: “No, no, no, it’s not bad news. We detected the cases, and that’s getting half of the job done.”
These efforts paid off: on 25 August 2020, the Africa Regional Certification Commission for Poliomyelitis Eradication certified the WHO African Region as wild polio-free.
Prof Leke’s joy, like mine and my team’s, our health ministers’, knew no bounds. We danced together when the news was announced, and she has since been relentlessly dedicated to preserving this status, and in the response to the circulating vaccine-derived polio in the region.
We share the determination that the world’s poorest region sustains its great achievement in polio and prove that when resources and health tools are availed equitably, people everywhere can benefit.
That leads me to her relentless dedication to advancing gender equality.
She was inspired by her own experience of gender inequity at work, and her observation of this phenomenon across the world, to mobilise international support to train young Cameroonians, then African women scientists and researchers. This is in addition, of course, to having trained many male experts as a professor at home.
She took this further, translating her recognition of young women scientists’ need for role models, for coaching and support into action.
She and a few senior women scientists obtained funding, which they used to organize training, and informal exchange sessions for early-career women scientists.
Their network has grown into the HIGHER Women Consortium.
Today, some of Prof Leke’s mentees are principal investigators, have won outstanding research awards, and are often featured in major international media, thus in turn inspiring other women.
They are contributing to driving gender equity in science and health in Africa.
Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot finish without extolling Prof Leke’s pioneering well-renowned research as an immunologist on malaria, and on other diseases particularly affecting Africa, such as onchocerciasis and filariasis, which has resulted in transformative action, and tangible results.
She has played a critical role as a researcher and policy advisor in contributing to the fact that today, we have the R21 vaccine which is effective against malaria, building on the experience with the RTS,S vaccine on which pilot delivery programmes have been carried out in 3 African countries. The malaria situation in Africa, and therefore the world, is poised to be transformed.
The beauty of Prof Leke’s long and diverse work lies in how she united global partnerships across continents, working with institutions (such as BMGF, Global Fund, WHO) while going down to local communities in her home country, Cameroon.
It is fitting that she is receiving the Virchow Prize as the world’s first malaria vaccines are being rolled out – to the smiles of millions of children and parents.
We’re grateful, Rose, for all that you have done. And we thank your husband and family, too, for their steadfast support to her.
We celebrate the lives Rose has touched, the hope she has inspired, the light she has illumined in every community free of polio, and in every African girl and woman who works to end disease and suffering in this world.
Congratulations, Prof Leke! Halala, as we would say to end in Xhosa.
Thank you very much.