As senior physician in Basel, Christoph Rudin was confronted with the first children with HIV infection in Switzerland. In recognition of the need for a systematic description of HIV infection in childhood and during pregnancy, he founded the Swiss Collaborative HIV and Pregnancy Study in 1989.

Ten years later, in 1999, the Swiss Mother and Child HIV Cohort Study (MoCHiV) was formed as a fusion together with the Swiss Neonatal HIV Study . Christoph Rudin has been president of MoCHiV since its inception and has committed himself to the care of HIV infected children. Under his lead, MoCHiV has not only witnessed the evolution of HIV management in childhood and pregnancy over the last three decades, but has also played a role in shaping it. Two important milestones were the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV through primary caesarean section, first proposed internationally by Swiss researchers in 1999, and the increased risk of premature births and malformations caused by some of the antiretroviral drugs.

In 1994, Christoph Rudin received the Venia docendi at the University of Basel on the topic “HIV infections in childhood and during pregnancy”.

The success of the MoCHiV and its international recognition is due to the tireless commitment and support of many colleagues from Switzerland and abroad. National and international cooperation was a central concern of Christoph Rudin. An important basis for the national networking and further development of MoCHiV in 2004 was the merger with the SHCS. Internationally, Christoph Rudin has been a member of the steering committee of the European Pediatric Network on AIDS (PENTA-ID) for many years. This commitment is of crucial relevance as the number of patients is declining and new knowledge can only be gained through international cooperation.

Last week, Christoph Rudin resigned as president after almost 30 years. We would like to thank him for his many years of passionate commitment to MoCHiV and HIV infection in childhood and during pregnancy. Now, Christian Kahlert has taken over the presidency of MoCHiV. We wish him and the team all the best to lead MoCHiV into the future!

Huldrych Günthard
president SHCS,
on behalf of MoCHiV and the SHCS