Abstract
Professor Hoosen Coovadia is currently working on maternal, newborn and child health, in metropolitan Durban at MatCH. He is personally and professionally committed to justice, democracy, development and freedom, during and after apartheid. He was chairperson of the Mandela government‘s first Commission on Maternal and Child Health to design appropriate policies for South Africa. He has headed the largest International AIDS Conferences to be brought to South Africa and published more than 320 papers on maternal and child health in national and international journals. He publicly and consistently opposed former South African President Thabo Mbeki‘s administration on their controversial AIDS policies, which denied HIV/AIDS patients antiretroviral treatment.