Lynchburg native says big gains being made in malaria fight

In Lynchburg, a mosquito is a nuisance, said city native Col. Donald "Gray" Heppner Jr.

"In Kenya, it's a potential death sentence," he said.

One of the world's most devastating diseases could be on the verge of eradication -- and Heppner is on the front lines.

Last week, Heppner was awarded the 2009 World Service Medal from Kiwanis International for his chief role in developing a promising vaccine against malaria.

"Malaria is a disease that is really holding the world back in the poorest parts of the world," said Heppner, deputy commander of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

"It is a disease that is preventable, it's curable, and we eliminated it 50 years ago in the United States."

Among those Kiwanis has previously honored for the annual award are Mother Teresa, Audrey Hepburn and first ladies Nancy Reagan and Rosalynn Carter.

Heppner, 53, attended Lynchburg city schools through middle school. He graduated from Virginia Episcopal School in 1974.

After studying infectious diseases at the University of Virginia and completing internal training at the University of Minnesota, he began working at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

"It was really a dynamic and inspiring place," he said, where he and about 2,000 employees are connected to the tropical world through overseas laboratories, field sites and more than 40 years of work. They also work with GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceuticals and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation "right in the heart of where tropical diseases afflict people most."

In the early 1990s, Heppner volunteered to be a test subject for a malaria vaccine. He said the process involved holding his arm to a cardboard cup that contained five mosquitoes carrying malaria -- he related it to receiving a week's worth of exposure to the disease in five minutes.

"The worst part," he said, "was actually realizing the vaccine wasn't effective."

The next-worst part was living through the flulike symptoms and the side effects of treatment, he said. "Both of those experiences convinced me of the need for a malaria vaccine," he said.

That's where the vaccine (known as RTS,S) comes in, Heppner said.

"We've worked for more than 20 years on this promising RTS,S vaccine," he said. "We've tested it here, we've tested it in England, in Asia and in Africa. . . . It looks like it would reduce severe malaria by 50 percent, and that's huge."

In a news release, Kiwanis International President Don Canaday called Heppner's work "a living demonstration of Kiwanis' mission to provide life-changing service."

David Heppner, Gray Heppner's brother and a trustee for the Capital District of Kiwanis International, said that the Lynchburg Kiwanis Club nominated him for the award.

"As his brother, I'm extremely proud of him," David Heppner said. "His dedication is a wonderful fit into what we do, so I thought it was a natural fit to nominate Gray."

As part of the award, Gray Heppner was given a $10,000 grant that he plans to donate to a Kiwanis Nursery School in Kisumu, Kenya, which educates and feeds children whose families have been afflicted by malaria and HIV/AIDS.

"There's just not enough resources going into malaria," he said. "Most of the Africans live on less than $2 a day . . . malaria keeps people in poverty."

Gray Heppner said he was in disbelief when he first heard he would receive the Kiwanis award. He now hopes it will draw attention to the fight against malaria.

"Once it's eliminated, it's gone from the world," he said. "Ask yourselves what you can do to help."

Christa Desrets is a staff writer for The News & Advance in Lynchburg.