AIDS

[Guest guest]

AIDS Groups Plan Legal Action Against South African

Government

By Emelia Sithole

JOHANNESBURG, Sep 12 (Reuters) - A coalition of South African anti-AIDS

groups said Friday it

planned legal action to force the government to provide the drug

nevirapine to pregnant women to prevent

vertical transmission.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said its hand had been forced by

continual government delays and

the refusal to accept a free offer by Boehringer Ingelheim, the German

company that makes nevirapine under

the name Viramune.

" We are definitely going ahead with the action. We are looking at

getting the courts to make a ruling in this

matter for the government to provide nevirapine to pregnant women, " said

TAC official Tebo Kekana. " We

are busy filing the papers on the government and then we will take it

from there, " he told Reuters.

South Africa has one of the world's fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemics

with 1,700 new infections daily.

Already 4.3 million people have the virus of a population 43 million.

South African research presented to the 13th International AIDS

Conference in Durban in July showed that

one dose of nevirapine, given to the mother during labor and to the

child within 48 hours of delivery, was just

as effective and much cheaper than AZT.

Boehringer Ingelheim said in July it would provide the drug to the

developing world free for the next 5 years,

but South African authorities have so far not taken up the offer,

arguing that it lacks the infrastructure to

monitor such a program.

The TAC's Kekana disagrees. " Nevirapine doesn't need any new

infrastructure at all, " he said. " There are

antenatal clinics already in operation and it can be administered at all

those clinics. We don't need to set up

new services. "

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) on Friday backed the

TAC stance, criticizing the

government for its ambivalent attitude on antiviral drugs.

" Where treatment is clearly affordable, for instance in the case of

drugs for mother-to-child transmission,

government must provide it urgently, " it said in a document prepared for

its annual congress to be held on

September 18th.

COSATU president Willie Madisha was later quoted as saying that the

government should end its " scientific

speculation " about the cause of AIDS.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang fueled the debate further last

week when she refused to answer

a talk-show host's question on whether she believed HIV caused AIDS.

" All this talk and debate about the cause of AIDS prevents people from

trying to deal with the problem, "

Madisha said.

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