NFB Documentary Features U of M Researcher

In May 1999, the University of Manitoba along with the National Film Board, premiered Searching for Hawa’s Secret, an hour-long documentary about the research of Frank Plummer, internal medicine and microbiology, and his colleagues in Canada and Kenya. The documentary details the life of Hawa Chelangat, a prostitute in a Nairobi shantytown who has not become infected with the deadly HIV virus despite repeated exposure. Plummer’s research into how this "natural" immunity that Hawa and a small number of other prostitutes in Nairobi seem to have may lead to the development of an HIV vaccine.