Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Monday November 19, 2001

South Africa has more people living HIV and AIDS than any other country, and activists of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) want the antiretroviral drug, called nevirapine, to be made available to pregnant women nationwide.

In a recent report, the state-funded Medical Research Council said the virus would account for a third of all deaths this year and would have killed between five and seven million people by 2010.

South Africa has balked at the use of nevirapine and other antiretroviral drugs such as AZT in public hospitals, saying the drugs are too expensive and toxic.

The South African Health Department has set up pilot projects in 200 hospitals and clinics to assess the value of nevirapine in reducing risks of mothers passing the virus on to their unborn children.

TAC chairman Zackie Achmat said his organization and other groups lobbying on behalf of people living with HIV-AIDS were taking the National Department of Health and health ministers from eight of the country's nine provinces to court on grounds they were violating the sufferers' constitutional right to life and to health care.

Achmat told reporters the case would begin in Pretoria on Monday. "We're very confident that, if not in this round, then in the end we will win the court case," he said.

He said the groups had settled with the government of the Western Cape Province, which includes Cape Town, where all pregnant women are offered nevirapine during childbirth.

TOO EXPENSIVE

President Thabo Mbeki, who has yet to acknowledge a causal link between HIV and AIDS, has said antiretrovirals are as dangerous as the disease they treat.

But the activists' case has won the backing of the World Health Organization which said it would provide written evidence and make experts available if required, Achmat said.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang reaffirmed in a radio interview on Monday South Africa could not afford antiretroviral therapy, but said this did not mean the government was not helping those with HIV and AIDS.

"It is not true that if you do not provide antiretrovirals, you have not treated patients who are HIV-positive," she said. She stressed the state did treat infections which flourish as AIDS breaks down the immune system.

"It is common knowledge that the antiretrovirals for this country are extremely costly. The budget I have for medicines generally is two billion rand ($207 million) and therefore, if I was going to spend all that money on antiretrovirals, what then do I do about other patients," she said.

The activists argue South Africa needs a common policy for the public and private sectors to ensure all doctors treated HIV and AIDS according to best international practice and avoid errors which could fuel the development of resistant strains of the virus.
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