Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Zambia Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
She qualified in 1973, the first Zambian woman to practise medicine, and went on to paediatric research that changed how newborns are resuscitated across the developing world.
Elwyn Chomba qualified in medicine in 1973, the first Zambian woman to do so — nine years after independence, in a country that at independence had fewer than a hundred university graduates of any kind and a handful of doctors for several million people.
She specialised in paediatrics and became professor of paediatrics and child health at the University of Zambia, and later Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health.
Her research is the substantial part. She was a principal investigator in Zambia for the international trials of Helping Babies Breathe and the First Breath study — large multi-country trials testing whether training birth attendants in simple neonatal resuscitation, in settings without incubators or specialists, would save newborn lives. It did, substantially, and the protocols that came out of that work are now used across low-resource health systems worldwide.
She also led Zambian work on HIV transmission from mother to child, and on the developmental outcomes of children born with HIV. The combination is unusual: a clinician who was a first, who then stayed and did the research that made the difference measurable.
She specialised in paediatrics and became professor of paediatrics and child health at the University of Zambia, and later Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health.
Her research is the substantial part. She was a principal investigator in Zambia for the international trials of Helping Babies Breathe and the First Breath study — large multi-country trials testing whether training birth attendants in simple neonatal resuscitation, in settings without incubators or specialists, would save newborn lives. It did, substantially, and the protocols that came out of that work are now used across low-resource health systems worldwide.
She also led Zambian work on HIV transmission from mother to child, and on the developmental outcomes of children born with HIV. The combination is unusual: a clinician who was a first, who then stayed and did the research that made the difference measurable.
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