/ 5 August 2003

Nevirapine debate takes centre stage

The debate about nevirapine to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV to babies takes centre stage at South Africa’s first Aids Conference in Durban on Wednesday.

The special plenary organised will see an HIV-positive woman who lost her baby because preventative medication was not available, pitted against a woman from the Medicines Control Council who is threatening to delist the drug.

The mother, Prudence Mabele, will face Precious Matsoso of the Medicine Control Council on the stage of the Durban Convention Centre before 4 000 delegates and the news cameras of the world.

Debating the issue with them will be Professor James McIntyre, one of the world’s leading experts on PTMCT, and the head of the PeriNatal HIV Unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto.

Kathy Wilford of the Washington-based Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric Aids Institute will be part of the panel. She will also give Matsoso a global petition signed by tens of thousands of people around the world since Friday demanding that the MCC allow nevirapine to be used to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV to South Africa’s babies.

On Monday, McIntyre said that 100 000 women had already received this therapy in the past two years in South Africa. This has in turn seen the incidence of HIV in babies dropping from a possible 40% to between nine percent and five percent in those provinces administering it.

Paediatrician Dr Ashraf Coovadia of Coronation hospital, who is attending the conference, on Tuesday said that it costs the state R30 per baby to admininster nevirapine.

If it is delisted and babies became HIV-positive, it would cost an average of R600 a month or around R28 000 during the shortened life expectancy of the baby to treat the ill child. – Sapa