Africa govt must provide AIDS drug - court By Buchizya Mseteka JOHANNESBURG, March 25 (Reuters) - A high court judge ruled on Monday that South Africa must provide women with an anti-AIDS drug that cuts the risk they will pass the deadly virus to their babies, an anti-AIDS group said. The government, which has been widely condemned for refusing to expand a Nevirapine pilot programme to all pregnant women on cost and safety grounds, had appealed against a March ruling ordering it to provide the drug while it takes its case to the Constitutional Court. The Pretoria High Court ruled in December the government had a constitutional duty to widen access to nevirapine, which has been shown to cut mother-to-child infection rates by up to 50 percent. The government asked the court for leave to appeal against that ruling in the Constitutional Court. In March, the High Court granted the government leave to appeal, but stipulated that it had to provide nervirapine while the Constitutional Court case was pending. The government then sought to overturn the March ruling, but was turned down on Monday, meaning it must provide Nevirapine while the Constitutional Court hearing takes place. No date has been set yet for the Constitutional Court case. South Africa has the highest number of people in the world living with HIV and AIDS, with an estimated one in nine South Africans infected -- around five million people -- and 70,000 to 100,000 babies born HIV-positive each year. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) told Reuters that High Court Judge Chris Botha gave the order. Judge Botha said Nevirapine must be given to HIV-positive pregnant women at all state hospitals and clinics with the capacity to do so, TAC spokesman Nathan Geffen said. The TAC, which launched the original court action over the drug, contends that 10 lives could saved each day if the government implemented Botha's ruling immediately. The government was not immediately available for comment. The Health Ministry is considering halting the distribution of Nevirapine if its domestic registration is withdrawn after an administrative glitch at Ugandan test sites prevented the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from approving its marketing. "We expect a few difficulties in terms of the government's political will to implement this court order. But we hope that the government will in the end care more about the lives of women and children affected by this," Geffen said. Experts say Nevirapine has limited side effects, but is a life saver, able to cut mother-to-child infection rates by half. Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim, which makes the drug, has offered to provide it free of charge to South Africa for five years. South African President Thabo Mbeki has taken a controversial stance on AIDS by questioning the link between AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes it. The ruling African National Congress had condemned the court ruling compelling it to provide Nevirapine to women in child-birth, saying it "defies logic." Top South African scientists urged the government last week to end its opposition to the use of drugs that help prevent pregnant women passing the virus to their unborn babies. The doctors, writing in The Lancet medical journal, said as many as half of the cases of children being born infected with HIV could be avoided if short courses of antiretroviral drugs -- which stop or suppress virus activity -- were used. 09:05 03-25-02
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