PATS aims to promote lung health in Africa, the continent most afflicted by morbidity and death from respiratory diseases, by promoting education, research, advocacy, optimal care and the development of African capacity to address respiratory challenges in the continent.
PATS is a registered Non-Profit Organisation (221-195-NPO).
We continuously partner with other regional and international respiratory organisations in global efforts to improve lung health.
PATS is overseen by an Executive Committee with members who are influential in the field of African thoracic medicine.
The Pan African Thoracic Society is a major professional organization representing Lung Health in Africa.
Prof. Refiloe Masekela PhD, Paediatric Pulmonologist, Head of Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.
She is and NIHR Global Health Research Professor and Honorary Visiting Associate Professor at the Queen Mary University London, UK. Her research interests are asthma and chronic respiratory diseases in African children, and she is the co-Chair of the Global Asthma Network and a Scientific Committee member of the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). She is also the Chair of the Adult and Child Lung Health Section of the International Union of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (Union) and Vice- Chair and president elect of the South African Thoracic Society (SATS). She has published multiple peer-reviewed publications and has written seven book chapters on respiratory diseases in children.
She has been invited to present her research and given invited lectures at national and international congresses. She is passionate about research capacity strengthening in Africa, has mentored, and graduated many students Masters and PhD students. She is the current Co-Director of the PATS Methods in Epidemiology, Clinical and Operational Research (PATS-MECOR) course.
Patron, Respiratory Society of Kenya, Kenya Association of Physicians and HIV Clinicians Society of Kenya
Joseph Aluoch qualified from Makerere University, Uganda, MBCHB in 1968. He was awarded MRCP (UK) Diploma (1974), followed by DTCD (Wales) with distinction (1975) and Diploma in Epidemiology (1976).
FRCP Edinburgh 1985 and FRCP Glasgow 1988.
His previous responsibilities include Director, Communicable Diseases, Ministry of Health in Kenya; National Tuberculosis Programme Manager; Director, Tuberculosis and Respiratory Disease Research Centre, Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI); Honorary Lecturer, Department of Medicine, University of Nairobi; Consultant Chest physician, Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH); Head Infectious Diseases Hospital; Director Training, Clinical Officers Tuberculosis and Leprosy, Medical Training Centre (MTC). He has had several consultancies with the World Health Organization (WHO) and served as Chairman of several Parastatal Boards in Kenya.
He is a Past Chairman, Kenya Medical Associations (KMA); Founder Chairman, Kenya Association of Physicians (KAP; Past President International Union against Tuberculosis (IUAT, Africa Region); Past Vice President, Commonwealth Medical Associations; Immediate Past President, Pan African Thoracic Society (PATS) and Past Chairman, HIV Clinicians Society of Kenya, Emeritus Advisor Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
Pulmonologist & Senior Lecturer, University of Lagos, Nigeria
Dr Uju Ozoh is a Pulmonologist and Senior Lecturer at the College of Medicine of the University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria. Dr Ozoh obtained her medical degree from the University of Nigeria Nsukka. She has a fellowship in pulmonology from the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria. She obtained further clinical training and experience as a pulmonologist at the Tygerberg Academic Hospital, University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa and from the sleep medicine program of the Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City, USA.
Her areas of research interest include airway diseases, pulmonary complications of respiratory exposures and chronic medical conditions as well as tobacco epidemiology and obstructive sleep apnea.
She is currently exploring the health effects of household kerosene use in Nigeria. Dr Ozoh is an executive member of the Nigerian Thoracic Society and is committed to improving the practice of respiratory medicine in Nigeria through research, advocacy and capacity building.
Prof Mbatchou Ngahane Bertrand Hugo is currently a Professor of pulmonary medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Douala.
He is a consultant in Respiratory and Occupational Medicine at the Douala general Hospital in Cameroon. He obtained his medical degree from Yaounde 1 University and did his residency in pulmonary medicine at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. He has also been trained in occupational medicine in the same university. He is President of the Cameroon Chest Society, the vice President of the Pan African Thoracic Society and he is member of several international scientific organisations. He is also the secretary of the Adult & Child Lung Section of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases and is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Union Conference. Pr Mbatchou is a Fellow of American Thoracic Society since 2019.
His research interest includes asthma, COPD, air pollution, tuberculosis and occupational medicine. He lead the BOLD study and the IMPALA-Unit NIHR funded Project in Cameroon. He is passionate in research on air pollution. He has been collaborating on research on household air pollution since 2015 with University of Liverpool and is currently a co-investigator in the NIHR project, CLEAN-Air(Africa) Unit, a partnership of experts from academic, research and clinical institutions from the UK, Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda.
MBChB, MMED (Internal Medicine) (UoN), MSc Respiratory Medicine (UK), MRes Global Health (UK), PhD (UK), FCP(ECSACOP), ATSF (American Thoracic Society Fellow).
Dr Jacqueline Wanjiku Kagima works at the Kenyatta National Hospital in the Respiratory and Critical Care Unit. She has a PhD in Clinical Sciences, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) in the United Kingdom (UK); her PhD work used mixed methods to evaluate ultrasound diagnostics in acute lung diseases and also assessed the facilitators and barriers to point of care ultrasound (PoCUS) utility within low and middle income settings (LMICs). She has a Master’s in Respiratory medicine from University of South Wales (UK) and a Masters in Global Health Research from Lancaster University (UK). She is a PATS MECOR graduate and currently a faculty in PATS MECOR level III.
Dr. J.W. Kagima is a Fellow of the East, Central and Southern Africa College of Physicians (ECSACOP), Fellow of the American Thoracic Society (ATSF) and a member of several other professional bodies. She has received several awards and honors including the ATS MECOR Graduate Scholarship Award, ATS International Trainee Scholarship over the years and the Job Bwayo Award for Science in Lung Health, an award given to a person who contributed immensely to the advance of scientific knowledge in lung health in Kenya. She is the 2023 recipient of the BTS-PATS Travel Fellowship.
She is the current secretary of the Respiratory Society of Kenya (ReSOK), where she also serves as the head of the training and research committee in ReSOK. She is committed to improving lung health in Africa through research, advocacy, collaborations and mentorship
Pulmonology Division, Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Cape Town.
Dr Diane Gray is a paediatric pulmonologist and clinical researcher in the Department of Paediatrics, Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on better understanding the determinants of chronic lung disease in African children and the development of appropriate preventive and management strategies. She has set up infant and preschool lung function testing in Africa, and contributed to international collaborations developing tools for preschool lung function testing. She is co-principal investigator of the Paediatric and Adult African Spirometry (PAAS) project and member of the PATS Spirometry working group. She currently holds a Wellcome Trust intermediate fellowship for research investigating the impact of early life exposures on chronic respiratory illness in African children.
Heather Zar is Professor and Chair of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at Red Cross Childrens Hospital and Director of the SA-MRC Unit on Child & Adolescent Health University of Cape Town UCT.
A global expert in childhood respiratory diseases, her work has focused on pneumonia, tuberculosis, asthma and HIV-associated lung diseases. She’s established an African birth cohort study, the Drakenstein Child Health study to investigate the developmental trajectories and early life determinants of health. An A1 rated scientist by the SA National Research Foundation, she’s published over 560 peer reviewed publications and mentors or has mentored >50 PhD or masters students. She is past-President of the Forum of International Respiratory Societies, past-President of the Pan African Thoracic Society, and serves as an advisor to WHO, UNICEF and the Gates Foundation. She chairs the WHO Technical Advisory committee on new RSV preventive interventions. She received the World Lung Health award from the American Thoracic Society in 2014, the L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Laureate for Africa and Arabia in 2018 and the SA-MRC Platinum medal for contributions over a lifetime in 2020.
Dr Ivan Schewitz is a Cardiothoracic Surgeon with a special interest in minimally invasive Thoracic Surgeon. He introduced Thorascopic Surgery into South Africa in 1991 and the Nuss procedure for Pectus Excavatum in 2008. He is the director of Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery wet-labs at the South African Thoracic Society Meetings since 2014.
He is also:
Honouree consultant, University of Pretoria.
Executive member of the South African Thoracic Society.
Executive and founder member of the Chest Wall International Group.
Involved in research in pectus deformities.
Kevin Mortimer is a Consultant and Clinical Director of Respiratory Medicine at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, UK. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Pan African Thoracic Society, Deputy Director of the Pan African Thoracic Society Methods in Epidemiologic, Clinical and Operations Research (MECOR) Programme, Chair of the British Thoracic Society Global Health Group and co-Chair of the Global Asthma Network. He is interested in developing solutions to the lung health needs of the world’s poor including asthma, COPD and post-TB lung disease.
Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Nairobi, Kenya
I am a paediatrician, pulmonologist, global health researcher and senior lecturer based at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. My passion lies in improving respiratory health in Kenya, regionally and globally. Thank you for your vote and trust. I am very excited to serve in the role of an ordinary member of the PATS Exco. You can count on my commitment to work with the entire team, to promote respiratory health education, research and advocacy.
Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Vaccines and Infectious Diseases research Unit, Johannesburg Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, Johannesburg
Dr. Charl Verwey established and currently runs the paediatric pulmonology unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital. He is the first elected Divisional Head of Paediatric Pulmonology at the University of the Witwatersrand. He serves on the executive council of the South African Thoracic Society and the National Asthma Education Programme, of which he is also a past president. He completed his PhD looking at the long-term pulmonary effects of respiratory syncytial virus lower respiratory tract infection in infancy, and continuous to perform research in this field through the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit. Other research interests include pulmonary function testing in lower-middle income countries and HIV-associated lung disease. In his spare time he spends time with his wife, three children, two cats and one dog, and tries to get in a few gravel bike sessions.
Department of Paediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria/University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu, Nigeria. email: joy.eze@unn.edu.ng
Joy Eze is a Paediatric Pulmonologist trained in the University of Cape Town/Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa. She is Senior Lecturer/Consultant in the Department of Paediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria/University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu, Nigeria.
Joy is a member of the Paediatric Association of Nigeria (PAN) Steering Committee for the control of Community Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) and contributed to the development of the current CAP treatment guideline. She is a member of the American Thoracic Society ‘International Health Committee (IHC) 2023-2024, and ‘PEDS’ International Relations Subcommittee, and has contributed positively to ATS. She served in the IHC ‘Dashboard Working Group’ from 2021-2022
Dr. Eze is a Faculty in the PATS MECOR. She mentors individuals and groups in research, and has co-authored several journal articles. Her research interests include- air pollutant exposures and lung health, spirometry, asthma, pneumonia, and primary ciliary dyskinesia.
Department of Child Health-School of Medicine and Dentistry, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital
Sandra is a Senior Lecturer and a Paediatric Pulmonologist. She holds an MPhil in Paediatric Pulmonology. She is also Fellow of the West African College of Physicians(Paed) and Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Her research work is focused on improving outcomes of lung health in early childhood specifically; asthma, tuberculosis, HIV and pneumonia. She has also worked in of air pollution and its impact on lung health, sickle cell lung disease and improving diagnosis of tuberculosis in children.
University of Cape Town Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital
Marco Zampoli completed his paediatric pulmonology training in South Africa where he currently holds the position of Associate Professor in Paediatrics at the University of Cape Town. Prof. Zampoli is head of the paediatric cystic fibrosis(CF)clinic at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. He completed his PhD on various aspects of CF epidemiology in South Africa and Africa. His other research and clinical interests include primary ciliary dyskinesia, pleural effusions, sleep medicine and long -term home ventilation
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