Bongani Mayosi

Abstract

Leading South African cardiologist. Born on Jan 28, 1967, in Mthatha, South Africa, he died on July 27, 2018, in Cape Town, South Africa, aged 51 years. Cardiologist Bongani Mayosi was, according to the South African Parliament, “one of the finest brains and passionate health experts who still had so much more to offer the nation”. But on July 27, 2018, Mayosi, one of Africa's most revered physicians and the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT), died. He left an important legacy said Hugh Watkins, the Radcliffe Professor of Medicine and Head of the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, Oxford, UK: “through the example he set, the networks he built, and his unparalleled efforts to mentor others, he has left a lasting legacy”. Born in Mthatha, in eastern South Africa, Mayosi's father, George, was a physician. Bongani Mayosi attended St John's College in Mthatha and studied medicine at the now University of KwaZulu-Natal's Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, with his wife, Nonhlanhla Khumalo, a dermatologist now on the faculty at UCT. After working at Groote Schuur Hospital and UCT, Mayosi received a DPhil from the University of Oxford, where he was the Nuffield Oxford Medical Fellow in Cardiovascular Medicine from 1998 to 2001. On returning to South Africa, Mayosi rejoined Groote Schuur and UCT, where he became Head of the Department of Medicine in 2006. Mayosi, who received South Africa's Order of Mapungubwe (Silver) in 2009, was particularly interested in the genetics of cardiovascular diseases. In 2017, he was part of a group that reported the discovery of a gene, CDH2, linked to arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. A member of The Lancet Global Health's International Advisory Board, he focused his research on areas where poverty and health intersected: the treatment of tuberculous pericarditis, the prevention of rheumatic fever, and the epidemiology of heart disease. At the time of his death, Mayosi was helping to coordinate a multicentre registry study of cardiovascular diseases in Africa. Watkins was Mayosi's thesis adviser and his collaborator on the registry study. “Like so many others, I feel that I have lost the most remarkable, energetic and inspiring friend and colleague”, Watkins told The Lancet. “Increasingly over the years, Bongani has stood out from everyone else in our field. The reason being that he combined his remarkable intellect and energy with a selflessness and sense of responsibility for others. This compelled him to tackle the neglected cardiac diseases that affect Africa's poor—and to do so by creating a research infrastructure from scratch across the continent.” Mayosi “achieved more in his tragically shortened life than the rest of us could ever hope to manage”, Watkins added. Mayosi was active in many national and global groups. He chaired the South African National Health Research Committee and the African Advisory Committee on Health Research and Development of the WHO Regional Office for Africa, served as President of the College of Physicians of South Africa and the Pan African Society of Cardiology, and was elected to the US National Academy of Medicine in 2017. Keertan Dheda, Head of the Division of Pulmonology and professor of medicine at UCT and President of the South African Thoracic Society, said Mayosi “possessed a rare combination of academic brilliance, vision, and tenacity combined with charm, an infectious smile, and deep humility, which made everyone he came into contact with feel special and empowered. He believed that happiness is not having a lot but giving a lot.” One of Mayosi's most important legacies, Dheda said, was his goal of fostering a sustainable scientific community devoted to solving local health problems. “He conceived the idea of training 1000 health science-related PhDs”, says Dheda, a proposal the South African Department of Health agreed to fund. “Many, at the time, thought that this idea was far-fetched and unachievable, but the first 82 PhDs have already been enrolled into the programme.” Karen Sliwa, Director of the Hatter Institute for Cardiovascular Research in Africa at UCT, called Mayosi “an incredibly gifted researcher and innovative thinker who brought to completion anything he started. He was a very-down-to-earth and a well grounded man with a kind word for everyone around him”. Mayosi is survived by his wife and three daughters, Nosipho Mayosi' S'vuyile Mayosi-Manana, and Camagu Mayosi.