The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) on Wednesday criticised The Star’s HIV/Aids reporting and pleaded for responsible journalism.
”That was a dangerous headline,” said TAC treasurer Mark Heywood, ”It will cause fear”.
The headline in question, on the Johannesburg newspaper’s front page, was: ”Aids drug risk for mothers”.
The article, from the Associated Press, gave evidence that use of nevirapine to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV could result in resistance to later Aids treatment.
Professor Jerry Coovadia, an Aids expert from the University of Natal, said this was not new information. Speaking at the TAC’s Johannesburg offices, Coovadia said such statements could be particularly damaging, and that nevirapine still is, and would remain, a ”very useful” drug.
National Health department spokesperson Sibani Mngadi also said the Health Department had been aware of resistance issues. However Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang expressed concern about the article, and had referred the matter to the Medicines Control Council (MCC) for investigation.
Coovadia said resistance to nevirapine tended to wane, and he would like to see studies that reported resistance after two years, not just six weeks.
At present nevirapine is registered with the MCC. It does have several known side effects, but the TAC reported that since nevirapine has been used to prevent mother-to-child transmission in South Africa 100 000 mothers have been given nevirapine with no serious adverse toxic effects.
What the article did not say was that nevirapine reduced mother-to-child HIV transmission from over 20% to 8,6%, said Heywood.
He said TAC continued to support the use of nevirapine as there was no suitable alternative. – Sapa