Dr. Refiloe Matji: Speaking for those without a voice

Dr. Refiloe Matji, a URC Vice President currently based in South Africa, is deeply committed to fighting the global threat posed by tuberculosis (TB). She is widely recognized as an authority on TB surveillance, care, and control and has been a leader in raising awareness of TB/HIV co-infection, internationally and in South Africa. (View a Public Broadcasting System interview with Dr. Matji.)

Dr. Matji oversees URC’s global TB and TB/HIV activities.  In addition, she also leads the USAID Health Care Improvement Project in Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland; the South Africa TB Program; and US Centers for Disease Control-funded activities on HIV counseling and testing in South Africa and Swaziland and TB and HIV programs in Botswana.  Recently, she led the team to develop harmonized TB, TB/HIV and MDR TB guidelines for the Southern African region.

Dr. Matji's commitment to the global battle against TB began over a decade ago. After attending medical school in Russia and later working as a clinician and hospital manager in Lesotho, her commitment to treating TB took root. While working as National TB Control Program Manager in Lesotho, she saw how the lack of follow-up systems combined with difficult socioeconomic factors contributed to high rates of treatment default and to anti-microbial resistance. She was largely responsible for introducing the directly observed treatment (DOTS) strategy in Lesotho, a key WHO protocol to address TB treatment.

In 1996, Dr. Matji was appointed to lead a WHO-recommended revitalization of TB control throughout South Africa. As National TB Manager for South Africa's National Department of Health (DOH), she fostered national awareness of the TB epidemic and the helped build the political commitment essential for effective program implementation and sustainability. Working with WHO and the Joint United Nations Programme for HIV/AIDS, she developed pilot TB/HIV programs at the district level to transform HIV testing from merely an entry point into a health care system to a means for accessing the full range of HIV and TB prevention and care services. 

The success of the interventions at the pilot sites helped the DOH mobilize funding from the Global Fund for scale-up of TB/HIV program integration. Recognizing the emerging threat of multi drug-resistant (MDR) TB, Dr. Matji worked with the Medical Research Council of South Africa to establish the first nationwide MDR TB surveillance system in South Africa.

Dr. Matji’s work has taken her to high burden TB countries worldwide and she has participated in strengthening TB control systems in diverse settings such as Bangladesh and Russia. She serves on several international working groups, including the WHO TB Advisory Committee, the WHO working group on MDR TB of the DOTS-Plus Initiative, and the Advisory Committee of International Union Against TB and Lung Disease (IUATLD).  She has served as a project mentor for the World Bank’s Global Development Network promoting innovative programs to realize the Health MDGs with special responsibilities for Peru.

Dr. Matji is committed to fighting for the rights of TB patients who often lack a voice, and giving support to frontline providers who are frequently overwhelmed by the challenges they face. In the course of her work she has played a strong role in developing and mentoring the professional and technical skills of the staff involved in URC’s project work in South Africa and throughout the Southern Africa region and has contributed greatly to the success of URC’s program framework.