Church helps secure anti-AIDS drug for South African mothers

Sydney
6 January 2002

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Church helps secure anti-AIDS drug for South African mothers

A tablet for the mother in labour and a teaspoon of syrup for the baby can cut infection rates by up to 50 per cent

By Bronwen Dachs

A Southern African bishops’ conference official has praised a High Court ruling requiring South Africa to provide an anti-AIDS drug to expectant mothers with HIV.

In December the Pretoria High Court ruled that the South African Government had to make the drug nevirapine available to women giving birth in public hospitals.

“This is a mammoth step forward for the Churches and everyone else who has been working for this,” said Oakford Dominican Sr Alison Munro, who heads the AIDS desk at the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Pretoria.

The Treatment Action Group, a coalition of AIDS advocacy organisations, launched the court action arguing that it was the Government’s duty to offer anti-retroviral drugs under the constitutional right to health care.

The bishops’ conference is a member of the group’s executive committee.

The German drug company Boehringer Ingelheim has offered nevirapine free to developing countries, but South Africa has yet to accept the offer, although it is testing the drug at 18 locations, reaching about 10 per cent of HIV-positive women.

Between 70,000 and 100,000 babies are born HIV-positive in South Africa every year.

A dose of nevirapine - a tablet given to the mother during labour and a teaspoon of syrup to the baby within the first 72 hours of birth - can cut infection rates by up to 50 per cent.

The South African Government is expected to appeal against the ruling before the country’s Supreme Court.

“We are delighted with the outcome of the court case,” said the spokesman for the bishops’ conference, Cape Town’s Auxiliary Bishop Reginald Cawcutt.

The Church had been lobbying for this “for a long time”, he said.