Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Miami Herlad - Wednesday, August 22, 2001
The Treatment Action Campaign, a coalition of AIDS activists, has been negotiating with the government for nearly four years, trying to persuade it to provide medication to prevent HIV transmission during childbirth, said Mark Heywood, secretary of the group.
Nearly 200 South African babies are born infected with HIV every day. The AIDS drug nevirapine can cut that number nearly in half, studies show.
"We have come to the point where legal action to try to enforce the rights of doctors to prescribe nevirapine, of pregnant women to receive nevirapine, rights to dignity and a range of other rights has become inevitable," Heywood said at a news conference.
A group of pediatricians and a children's rights group also joined the suit against the minister of health and the country's nine provincial health ministers.
The suit demands the government develop a national policy to help reduce HIV transmission from pregnant women to their children, including providing voluntary counseling and testing at prenatal clinics, and providing infected mothers with infant formula to prevent transmission of the virus through breast milk.
Health Ministry spokeswoman Jo-Anne Collinge said the government was waiting to comment until after it had been served with the court papers.
An estimated 4.7 million South Africans, about 11 percent of the population, are infected with HIV.
The government recently announced the start of two pilot programs in each of the country's nine provinces to monitor the effect of the nevirapine treatment.
But Heywood said the nevirapine treatment already had been proved safe and effective, and there was no need for a pilot project that would delay giving most of the infected women access to the medicine.
The Treatment Action Campaign estimated the program reached only 10 percent of the women who needed the medicine.
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