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Reuters NewMedia - Tuesday January 22, 2002
KwaZulu Natal Premier Lionel Mtshali said his decision--which is at odds with national government policy--was based on the principle that emergency health care was a constitutional right.
KwaZulu Natal has the highest population of people with HIV-AIDS in the country and provincial government officials said they could not stand aside while the disease ravaged their people.
Mtshali's decision to make the antiretroviral drug nevirapine available puts him in conflict with national policy that opposes supplying the drug because of cost and safety concerns.
Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim, which makes nevirapine, has offered to provide the drug free to South Africa for five years.
"Constitutionally no-one may be refused emergency medical treatment. The administration of nevirapine is an emergency medical treatment," Mtshali said in a statement.
Officials from the national health ministry were not available for comment. South Africa is at the epicentre of the AIDS epidemic with nearly five million of the country's 45 million people, or one in nine, estimated to be living with HIV.
KwaZulu-Natal, the country's most populous province, is estimated to be the worst-hit region with an HIV prevalence rate of 36% among pregnant women. President Thabo Mbeki, who is skeptical of the causal link between HIV and AIDS, further muddied the waters last year when he said life-prolonging retrovirals were as toxic as the condition they were meant to treat.
MOTHER'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE
The government is appealing a high court ruling in December that said the state had a constitutional duty to expand access to nevirapine, which has been shown to cut mother-to-child infection rates by up to 50%.
Between 70,000 and 100,000 babies are born HIV-positive each year in South Africa and Mtshali said it was a mother's prerogative to save her baby. Making the drug available gave her the right to choose, he said.
"While it is accepted that the drug nevirapine does cause complications, it is the pregnant woman's prerogative to save her child from contracting the AIDS virus," he said.
"A mother who is already afflicted by an incurable disease should not have to contend with a hopeless situation of having her unborn baby facing the same affliction if it can be prevented," he added.
KwaZulu-Natal is the second of South Africa's nine provinces to make the drug available at state hospitals at no cost. Nevirapine is also available in the wealthier Western Cape.
Pilot projects for nevirapine at 18 sites were set by the government across the country, but AIDS activists say this is insufficient as the programme reached only 10% of HIV-positive women.
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