CLAIRE KEETON, Pretoria | Tuesday
THE anti-AIDS drug Nevirapine could save the lives of thousands of newborn babies every year in South Africa if the government made it freely available, a leading anti-Aids group said on Monday in a landmark legal case against the government.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is trying to force the government to provide nationwide treatment for HIV-positive women to reduce transmission of the deadly disease to their babies.
The government has argued that it lacks resources and infrastructure to widely distribute Nevirapine, which German pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim has offered to provide free of charge.
The government only offers the drug at a handful of research sites, reaching about 10% of HIV-infected women.
“About 100,000 babies become HIV positive every year, most of whom die by the age of five,” TAC lawyer Gilbert Marcus told the Pretoria High Court.
“It is neither an exaggeration nor emotional to say this is literally a matter of life and death which concerns … whether newborn children live or die.”
He said Nevirapine could cut mother to child HIV transmission by half but the “government programme reaches only 10% of babies”.
“We say this is nothing short of insanity.”
Marcus said the government’s health policy “suffers from a fatal flaw” in not providing Nevirapine and condemned it as “arbitrary, unreasonable and irrational”.
“The results are potentially thousands of predictable, yet avoidable, deaths of children,” he said.
Marcus said conservative estimates of 20 000 children dying from Aids every year amounted to “approximately four times the death toll resulting in the attack on the World Trade Centre to be repeated every year unless the respondents implement (the Nevirapine) programme.”
Several pregnant women wearing “HIV-positive” T-shirts and mothers with toddlers were present in the court room. Earlier on Monday they had marched past the offices of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to lay down crosses symbolising infants who have died from Aids.
In its legal challenge, TAC is demanding that Nevirapine be made available in the public health sector and doctors be allowed to prescribe it.
Marcus reminded the court of the enormity of the Aids epidemic, described by the health department as an “incomprehensible calamity which has claimed millions of lives”.
But he said a single, cheap treatment of the Nevirapine offered real hope “amid the gloom”.
Apart from the Western Cape province, however, Nevirapine is only available in the private sector, at designated sites.
Marcus said the government’s current policy violated several constitutional rights including the right to life, dignity and equality.
TAC, Wits University paediatrician Haroon Saloojee and the Children’s Rights Centre launched the case, which is being defended by the minister of health and eight provincial ministers.
The Western Cape is excluded as it intends to distribute Nevirapine to centres by March 2003.
“I was overwhelmed by the litany of sorrows but the Western Cape was like the promised land,” Judge Chris Botha said of the affidavits submitted to court.
“I have the impression everything is being stalled … there are people (doctors) inclined to assist but feel their hands are tied.”
Marumo Moerane, a lawyer for the government, argued there was “not sufficient resources and infrastructure”.
He said the government has adopted a phased implementation and needed to be cautious as Nevirapine was a “new and potent drug”.
Eight months ago TAC was an ally of government in its legal battle against pharmaceutical companies over access to affordable drugs.
TAC chairman Zackie Achmat said on Monday: “We support the government when it is right and tackle it when it is wrong. This is clearly wrong. It makes us very sad and angry and should have been resolved five years ago when we started negotiations.”
Moerane will present the government’s arguments on Tuesday. – AFP
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