Court orders Mbeki to provide Aids drug

A high court judge has ordered the South African government to begin dispensing anti-Aids drugs to HIV-positive pregnant women immediately. Activists say the judgment will save the lives of tens of thousands of babies each year.

The ruling is a humiliating defeat for the government on an issue that has united churches, unions, much of the medical profession and opposition parties in condemning Thabo Mbeki's administration for "sacrificing children" because of the president's unorthodox views on Aids.

Aids activists cheered as the judge, Chris Botha, ordered to make the drug nevirapine available to all suitable HIV-positive women giving birth in public hospitals.

A single dose of the drug halves the likelihood of an HIV-positive mother passing the virus to her child at birth. More than 70,000 babies a year are born HIV-positive in South Africa.

The court also ordered the government to draw up a comprehensive national strategy to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV, including testing for the virus, and to present the plan to the court in March next year for approval.

The lawsuit was brought by a group of paediatricians and the Treatment Action Campaign, which played a leading role in forcing multinational drug companies to abandon a patent protection lawsuit against South Africa earlier this year.

The TAC argued that the government's refusal to distribute nevirapine breached the constitutional right to life of many children born with HIV and amounted to racial discrimination because white people can afford to buy it privately.

Mark Heywood, a legal strategist for the TAC, said that yesterday's ruling offers hope to adults unable to obtain anti-retrovirals because of government policies.

"For a judge to order that a medicine be provided is unparalleled," he said. "If the government complies with the order, and in a way that doesn't drag its feet, it has benefits not just to women but to the provision of treatment for HIV/Aids throughout the health service."

The government, which is expected to appeal the case, had argued that it could not afford to provide nevirapine, and that the safety and effectiveness of the drug remains unproved. It said that it lacked the resources to provide poor HIV-positive mothers with the necessary backup, including baby-feeding bottles, sterilising equipment and baby-formula dried milk because they should not breast feed.

But the judge ruled that the government does have the resources and noted that just such a programme is in place in the Western Cape province, where the political opposition was in control when it was introduced.