Nate Rott

Okay.

So today on the show, the Pan-Africa HIV vaccine trial that was almost over before it even started.

You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.

Okay, we're back.

Ari, where do we pick up this story?

Zanzibar, Zanzibar, Zanzibar is very far.

You can't get there in a car.

It's too far to Zanzibar.

I've actually been to Zanzibar already, and it is stunningly beautiful.

I have, yes.

OK, so a vaccine that would work across different parts of the continent because HIV, as you pointed out, the virus is different from country to country.

I got a feeling I know where this is going.

Wow, and I'm assuming that included this grant.

Yeah, she was the one that said that their legs had been cut off before they started sprinting, right?

I bet.

I mean, after decades of work by her and her colleagues collecting blood samples and all that work.

There's disbelief in the first instance.

Then there is emotion that basically is angry because we'd worked damn hard.

We'd won this grant and we were doing what we had said we would do.

This matters too much to not finish the work.