He still bristles at her insinuation that he was not a loyal South African, even though Mandela had awarded him the Star of South Africa for Contributions to Democracy and Health in 1999. “And that was the end of all contact for years”, he recalls. She warned that there would be repercussions once his “international friends” had left. He refused then Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's demands for right of reply at the closing plenary. He became prominent in the anti-apartheid movement during the 1970s when he was in the leadership of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and was on the executive of the National Medical and Dental Association, set up after revelations of complicity by doctors in the police torture of Steve Biko.Ĭoovadia was co-chair of the International AIDS Conference in Durban, in 2000, when Mbeki's denialism and refusal to provide antiretrovirals came under attack. Upon graduation, in 1965, he returned to South Africa and spent most of his career in his native KwaZulu-Natal, becoming professor and head of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Natal from 1990 to 2000. He studied medicine in Mumbai, India, because as a non-white in apartheid South Africa he required government permission to travel to the University of Cape Town, which was denied. Despite the international accolades and awards accrued over the years, Coovadia exudes an air of modesty and wry humour as he discusses his early activist days, his achievements, and his passion for tennis and literature (listen to this week's podcast for an interview with Coovadia). “He's like a Nelson Mandela in health”, says Glenda Gray, Director of the University of Witwatersrand's Perinatal HIV Research Unit. The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific.The Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia. The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology.
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