My African Odyssey

He came to SA as a penniless refugee. Now Dr Emmanuel Taban is one of SA’s Covid-19 heroes

- Nasifa Sulaiman

It was something as simple as a Coca- Cola bottle that changed the trajectory of his life and set him on the road to becoming a celebrated doctor who now harnesses his knowledge to make a difference to Covid-19 patients staring death in the face.

“Made in South Africa” the label on the Coke bottle said – and with just a few hundred rands in his pocket, he made his way across Africa alone, fleeing his war-torn homeland and eventually arriving at his destination.

He was only 17 years old.

Fast forward two-and-a-half decades and Pretoria-based Dr Emmanuel Taban is one of the country’s top pulmonologists – one who found himself making the news at the height of SA’s battle against the pandemic.

His inspiring story is the subject of a new book, The Boy Who Never Gave Up – a tale he decided had to be written because he felt not enough African stories of hope and courage were being told.

“That’s what motivated me,” he says. “Initially it was very difficult but I realised a story like mine needed to be told properly so I approached ghostwriter Andrew Crofts to help me with the book. It took six months.”

His first attempt to have it published was rejected but his wife, Motheo, told him there was no time to fret over it – the first wave of Covid-19 was rising and people needed him. “She said, ‘What if Covid was meant for you? Focus on your work. There’s no room now for you to go into a depression’.

“So I put my disappointment behind me to focus on my passion, which is my patients, and researching solutions for the virus.”