South Africa to Oppose Suit Seeking Low-Cost AIDS Drugs

The South African government will oppose a court bid by AIDS campaigners to force it to provide drugs that cut mother-to-child HIV transmission at birth, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Friday. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is demanding that the government start a national program to distribute the antiretroviral drug Nevirapine to help cut the number of children born with HIV.

Earlier this year, the TAC fought alongside the government in a successful court battle for the right to manufacture copies of patented drugs in South Africa and to buy branded drugs at the best prices available anywhere in the world. Now the TAC says the government is dragging its heels on a key intervention to cut the HIV infection rate. HIV is already estimated to have infected one person in nine, or close to 5 million South Africans. Experience in other countries indicates that Nevirapine given to an HIV-positive mother during delivery significantly cuts the rate of infection among babies.

Tshabalala-Msimang said cultural and other issues also had to be managed, citing community reaction to women who, in line with the non-transmission strategy, do not breast-feed their babies. "In our culture, a woman who gives birth and does not breast-feed raises eyebrows," she said. "If you don't have support systems on the ground, this program will just fall flat on its face." Tshabalala-Msimang said the government was not considering any other use of antiretroviral drugs in the health system because they are too expensive. She said treatment of adult AIDS cases required expensive drug cocktails and clinical monitoring and blood sampling for life to prevent the development of drug-resistant strains.

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