GENEVA, Oct 25 (AFP) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) called for the general use of anti-retroviral drugs in the fight to stop AIDS being passed from mothers to their children, after saying Wednesday that results from drug trials had shown no unwanted effects.

Each year 600,000 children are infected by the virus.

Clinical trials using anti-retroviral drugs have proceeded without showing damaging effects on either the mothers' health or the growth and development of the children, according to the WHO and UNAIDS, the UN body which deals with AIDS.

"I sincerely hope that from now on, more women in developing countries will have access to programmes aimed at stopping transmission from mothers to their children," said Dr Awa-Marie Coll-Seck, director of UNAIDS.

"We welcome these recommendations and especially those which deal with the use of Nevirapine," she added.

Under previous recommendations, the drug Nevirapine was only available for clinical trials and research projects.

In April, South African health authorities urged caution over the drug when five women undergoing trials died.

However, the cost of anti-retroviral drugs is likely to mean that despite the WHO's call for their general use, few may end up receiving treatment.

On Tuesday, South Africa's Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said that due to the cost of anti-retrovirals, the government could not promise that it would make them available at public expense as AIDS activists have demanded.

Public health doctors said that to provide anti-retrovirals to all 4.2 million South Africans currently infected with HIV would cost in the region of six billion rand (more than 800 million dollars).

The WHO estimates that 5.1 million children have been infected with AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic, with children catching the virus from their mother in 90 percent of cases. Of these, two-thirds are born with the virus, the remainder catching it through breastfeeding.

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