The government’s legal battles against the Aids lobby group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) last year cost R2,88-million, according to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
She said in written reply to a parliamentary question from Sarel Gous (NNP) that her department had carried the costs — up to December 2002 — of the lawsuit.
The Constitutional Court in July last year denied the government leave to appeal against a Pretoria High Court order forcing it to provide antiretrovirals to HIV-positive pregnant women and their babies in state hospitals.
The TAC first approached the High Court regarding the state’s Aids policy in August 2002.
The court ruled in December of that year that nevirapine be made available in the public sector to pregnant women with HIV, and ordered the government to plan an effective and comprehensive national implementation programme.
The government then decided to apply for leave to appeal the ruling.
In addition, the TAC filed a contempt of court application in December last year against the Mpumalanga health MEC Sibongile Manana and the national minister, relating to the province’s perceived inability to provide mother-to-child HIV prevention programmes. ‒ Sapa