AEGiS-IRIN: SOUTH AFRICA: Health Minister in possible AIDS treatment legal bind UN Integrated Regional Information NetworkImportant note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Health Minister in possible AIDS treatment legal bind

Integrated Regional Information Networks News - November 22, 2005


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 22 November (PLUSNEWS) - South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is in danger of placing herself in contempt of court for failing to provide HIV-positive pregnant women with anti-AIDS treatment, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party said on Tuesday.

"The minister has had three and a half years in which to take all reasonable steps to comply with a [July 2002] Constitutional Court judgment and implement a mother-to-child HIV transmission prevention programme across the country," DA health spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard told the South African Press Association.

Citing the latest UNAIDS epidemic update, Kohler-Barnard said the fact that this programme was now reaching only 57 percent of the women it should be reaching, was a tragedy.


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