Award for pioneering priest

A priest from Northern Ireland who was the first person in Africa to be injected with a HIV vaccine, has won a major award.

Fr Kieran Creagh from Belfast was made the Irish International Person of the Year at a ceremony in Dublin at the weekend.

Fr Kieran Creagh received a major award

He was honoured because of his work with people suffering from Aids and HIV.

Although free from the virus, he volunteered to be injected with the trial vaccine and risked his life to help sufferers.

"I feel very privileged and honoured," he said, after receiving the award.

"I am humbled, there are so many people doing great development work throughout Ireland."

In seven years working in South Africa, the plight of the people moved him so much that he agreed to allow himself to be injected with the trial HIV vaccine last November.

"We have the population of Ireland - five million people - currently living with HIV and Aids in South Africa," he told BBC News Online.

"It is so sad to see young people getting sick. I do not think people deserve to die because they have not been careful sexually. We have people aged just 21, lying in bed because they cannot walk."

We have people aged just 21, lying in bed because they cannot walk Fr Kieran Creagh

Fr Creagh was not injected with the live virus, but the injection means that his body thinks it has HIV and, it is hoped, will respond with the right antibodies.

Doctors are closely monitoring his body's response.

Hospice work

The Passionist priest from Holy Cross is now based at the hospice for Aids patients which he founded in South Africa.

He was inspired to build a place of peace after working at a hospice in Dublin.

In South Africa, he was appalled at the squatter camps and the conditions in which people were forced to live - he felt he had to do something.

"A friend who is an architect donated the plans and my family and friends did fundraising too.

"There was a pub quiz and my mother wouldn't allow anyone to buy her presents for her birthday, the money was to go to the hospice instead," he explained.

He named the hospice, which opened on 3 July, Leratong, meaning the place of love.

Support for the hospice has come from groups and individuals throughout Ireland.

Fr Creagh said he was surprised to learn that he had won a major humanitarian award.

"I was returning home from an Aids conference in Durban when I got the phone call," he said. "It took a while to convince me."