AIDS researchers said the deaths of five women in HIV/Aids drug trials were more likely the result of flaws in the handling of the trials than problems with the drugs themselves. The researchers were responding to the controversial decision by the government this week to suspend recruitment of new subjects for anti-retroviral drug trials after it emerged that five patients had died in trials testing a new drug, STC, and involving the widely effective Nevaripine. Researchers, however, warned that the deaths highlight the way drug trials are run in South Africa — and the concern and that differing standards are being applied across all the trials.
COURT DELAYS TRIAL OF ABACHA’S SON
A LAGOS court Friday stopped proceedings in the ongoing murder trial of Mohammed Hamza al-Mustapha, son of late military ruler General Sani Abacha, to allow an appeal in the case, court officials said. Mohammad, a security officer to the late general, and two others, are standing trial over the 1996 killing of Kudirat Abiola, wife of the late politician Moshood Abiola. Mohammed has contested the trial in an Appeal Court, saying he has no case to answer. On Friday, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun of the Lagos High Court, Ikeja agreed to a stay of proceedings pending the determination of the appeal, the court officials said. The hearing was witnessed by Johnnie Cochran, the well-known US lawyer who successful defended the celebrated former football star, O.J. Simpson, when he was accused of killing his wife and her lover.
GUN TO FORM PEACE MONUMENT
SOUTH Africa will destroy surplus arms stocks and guns confiscated from members of the public to build a peace monument later this year, Deputy Defence Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge said. “We are going to build a monument to peace, using the residue of the destroyed weapons, in memory of all those that have died in wars in Africa,” Madlala-Routledge said during a parliamentary debate on the defence budget vote. The destruction by the defence force of collected illegal small arms, as well as its own surplus stock, will be a public activity and will be used to raise awareness about the danger of illegally acquired small arms, she said.