WOZA (Johannesburg) - May 21, 2001
Marjolein Harvey
"Doctors have started administering nevirapine to pregnant women there, as part of the provincial government's programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV," Gauteng government spokesperson Thabo Masebe told iClinic.
Government announced in January that it would be implementing a massive programme to provide the antiretroviral drug nevirapine and milk powder free to HIV-positive pregnant women, in an attempt to stem the transmission of the virus to babies.
The visit was meant to assess progress in Gauteng, and Masebe says the premier and the MEC are happy that the officials working at the clinics are performing everything in line with government's protocols.
"The Natalspruit Hospital's antenatal clinic indicated that women are keen to take a voluntary HIV test after being counselled," Masebe says.
The province is aware that there is still a lot of work to be done in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and that the work done at these sites is only one step in the right direction, he says.
A senior official from the office of the national director of the HIV/AIDS/STDs unit on the Nono Simelela is compiling a list for iClinic of clinics and hospitals around the country where the programme is currently running. She is expected to provide the information on Tuesday.
Research found that while 40 in every 100 women with HIV will pass the virus on to their babies during and after birth, this can be reduced by half with medicine. Babies are infected with the virus by their mothers either in the womb, during birth or through breast feeding.
"The mother-to-child transmission of HIV [MTCT] programme is expected to prevent 2 500 babies a month from contracting HIV," the Treatment Action Campaign says. Government's announcement followed the publication late last year of safety data from three separate efficacy trials in the US, South Africa and Uganda - involving more than 1 000 mother-infant pairs - which have demonstrated no severe adverse reactions associated with a single-dose of nevirapine.
The Medicines Control Council finally approved the use of nevirapine for the prevention of MTCT in January, after a panel of experts meeting in November assessed the safety and applicability of the drug.
"The MCC has now granted a licence to allow German firm Boehringer-Ingelheim to distribute its nevirapine [viramune] drug as a preventive drug in MTCT, as well as its wider use in the public health system," a spokesperson confirmed in January.
Nevirapine as used in MTCT prevention entails one dose of nevirapine administered to HIV-infected mothers in labour, followed by a second dose 24 to 48 hours after delivery, and one dose to their infants immediately after birth. The cost of the entire treatment is R30.
Approval for the drug is seen as a gauge of the government's commitment to fight AIDS, which already infects one in 10, or 4.2 million, South Africans and threatens to kill up to seven million within a decade.
An estimated 5 000 HIV-positive babies are born every month in South Africa, which is at the epicentre of the AIDS epidemic that affects some 35 million people globally.
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