Heather Zar

"Conventional practice was that TB was difficult to confirm in children."

"There was a misconception that asthma is rare in African children."

"The study showed that it's common, with prevalence rates that are often higher than global rates."

"The study will hopefully provide valuable information to identify new interventions for improving child health."

"Translational research is the bridge between clinical and basic science research."

"The implementation of findings into practice and public health including policy and guidelines."

"Despite children being a third of the population, child health is ­relatively underfunded and under­resourced."

"Child health has been worsening over the past 20 years in South Africa."

"More funding and capacity development are needed to strengthen child health programmes."

"My hope is that it helps shine a spotlight on this relatively under resourced area of research."

"Children are so seldom prioritised on the health agenda."

"There’s a lack of knowledge about the burden of childhood illnesses even though children make up 37 percent of our population."

"Much childhood death and illness is preventable."

"Improving access to affordable, effective interventions globally is vital."

"There’s so much respiratory disease and there’s so much to be done."

"I was always very interested in the potential public health impact."

"I wanted to be in an area in which you could turn things around."

"In pulmonology, there’s a lot of immediate change oxygen, antibiotics, those sorts of interventions, plus interventions on a longer timeframe."

"It’s a key issue to get these products to low and middle income countries (LMICs)."

"This is where children are dying from RSV."

"Paediatrics is about creating better futures."

"The big question in the project is, what makes for a healthy child?"

"We enrolled pregnant women, moms in these peri urban poor areas."

"Following them through pregnancy, through childbirth, and now we are following the children who are turning 11 years old."

"We wanted to look very broadly to understand why some children get ill."

"Why some children are healthy children from the same communities."

"We looked at growth, at neurodevelopment, and now as the children are getting older, we are starting to look at non-communicable diseases like cardiometabolic disease and asthma."

"The mother’s health, both physical and psychological, factors like depression and anxiety."

"We looked at the home environment, we visited the homes before the children were born, and after."

"We looked at child and maternal nutrition, at allergies."

"We even looked at things like parenting style."

"Some of their findings were predictable."

"Mothers who smoke in pregnancy have children who are smaller, children who have more lung disease, children who are less healthy."

"Now this is very important because of the new vaccines, which we really need to access for our children."

"Children suffering from diseases of poverty."

"When Mandela was freed, there was so much euphoria and so much hope for the future."

"We felt that this is where we could make a contribution."