Renowned scientist honoured for efforts to prevent babies dying from pneumonia

14 December 2023 - Wits University

Honorary doctorate for global health scientist recognises his contribution to reducing infant mortality globally.

Professor Keith Klugman received a DSc honoris causa at the Faculty of Health Sciences graduation ceremony at Wits University on 14 December 2023. 

The Wits alumnus is the Director of Pneumonia and Pandemic Preparedness at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he works to reduce deaths from pneumonia, neonatal sepsis, and meningitis in children. 

Options and opportunities

Addressing the graduands, Klugman said, “You’re really on the cusp of an extraordinary life. Medicine gives you so much. If you have any interest in the health sciences, getting a medical degree is a springboard which will help you for the rest of your life.”

Klugman’s own trajectory since occupying those same seats in the Great Hall 46 years ago has been remarkable. His passion was science and he first graduated with a BSc in 1977 before later graduating with both a PhD in experimental physiology and an MBBCh on the same night in 1981 – a first for the University.

“Your options if you become a doctor are extraordinary. It’s a wonderful privilege that you embark on today,” said Klugman, whose passion for science led him to pursue a career in medical microbiology and infectious diseases.

As a medical registrar, he led the first vaccine trial of a capsular antigen Vi to prevent typhoid fever in school children in Mpumalanga. This vaccine today forms the basis of the success of the Vi conjugate vaccine that is rolling out globally to prevent that disease.

The importance of passion

Klugman emphasised to the graduands the importance of passion. He advised that they find something that they really feel passionate about, because then they (and their patients) would live fulfilled lives.

“It would be remiss of me not to say something about my passion, because that’s my main message for you,” he said. “Don’t settle for anything that you don’t feel passionate about. When you’re passionate about something, you’ll do better. Passion is really at the heart of being a good doctor.”

It was Klugman’s passion for science that saw him leave South Africa for postdoctoral research at Rockefeller University in New York. Here he used the new field of molecular biology to work towards a meningococcal vaccine.

In 1990, when Mandela was released from prison, Klugman returned to South Africa and devoted himself to what became his life-long pursuit – the development of vaccines to prevent young children dying from pneumonia.

Infants, vaccines, and pneumonia

In 2001, Klugman returned to the US to take a global lead in pneumonia prevention in children. At the Centres for Disease Control (CDC), associated with Emory University, he became the founding Bill Foege Endowed Chair of Global Health. (Bill Foege, a former Director of the CDC, pioneered the ring vaccination strategy that rid the world of smallpox).

Klugman said, “Now with all the things going on in the world today, it’s easy to become depressed. But there’s some fabulous things that we don’t talk about: do you know that the number of kids who die every year on this planet has halved in the last 20 years?”  

Much of the reduction in pneumonia mortality in children is because parents have been taken out of poverty, Klugman said, citing India and Indonesia as beacons.

“Those countries have really made huge strides, and this is true, too, in some parts of Africa. But there are countries in Africa where kids still die at the same rate that they died 20 years ago.”

Dying of poverty 

“We have a grand-daughter, one-year-old now, she was in intensive care this week in New York, where her parents live,” Klugman told graduands. “But because she was there, she got oxygen, she got antibiotics. I was in Sierra Leone a month ago and the young babies there have RSV [respiratory syncytial virus]. They don’t have access and therefore babies essentially die of poverty. They die of the poverty of their parents.”

Klugman’s passion for science is matched with his passion for equitable access to vaccines for the world’s poorest children. In 2012, he was recruited by another Wits alumnus, Trevor Mundel, to develop the pneumonia and meningitis prevention strategy of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In this role, Klugman has led the Foundation to prioritise the development of vaccines to prevent RSV and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), both important causes of childhood mortality for which vaccines did not exist

“There is extraordinary opportunity in global health,” Klugman told graduands. “You are uniquely set up to do that because, throughout your training, just by living in South Africa, you will have experienced inequity, you will know how many desperately poor people there are out there, and you have an enormous opportunity to change their lives for the better.”