Africa Health Research Institute

Prof Refiloe Masekela is a paediatric pulmonologist. She is a member of AHRI faculty, the academic head of department of paediatrics and child health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and a NIHR global health research professor studying asthma interventions in children.

Her area of research interest is asthma epidemiology. This extends to access to affordable medicines for people living with chronic respiratory diseases, improving access to pulmonary diagnostic tests in Africa, and addressing interventions that may influence lung health in people with chronic respiratory disease.

She holds a medical degree from Wits University, and completed her specialist paediatric training at the University of Pretoria – where she was instrumental in setting up the first paediatric HIV clinic. She went on to do a fellowship in paediatric pulmonology at the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium and at the University of Pretoria.

Refiloe is passionate about research capacity strengthening, and is a co-director of the Pan African Thoracic Society Methods in Epidemiology, Clinical and Operational Research programme, which trains healthcare workers in Africa on lung health research methodology. She additionally holds positions on multiple international forums: she is co-chair of the Global Asthma Network, president of the Pan African Thoracic Society, a science committee member of the Global Initiative of Asthma, and member of the European Respiratory Society Global Lung Initiative Network. Nationally, she is vice-president and president-elect of the South African Thoracic Society.

Get in touch with Refiloe via refiloe.masekela@ahri.org

Click here for a full list of publications.