AIDS drugs battle goes to court

PRETORIA, South Africa -- A battle to force the South Africa government to hand out AIDS drugs to all HIV-positive pregnant women has gone to court.

AIDS activists' lawyers are arguing in a lawsuit on Monday that the ruling over the drug nevirapine will be "a matter of life and death."

Hundreds of the country's pediatricians and AIDS campaigners want the drug to be made available through the public health system.

A German-based pharmaceutical company, Boehringer Ingelheim, has offered to distribute the drug for free, but the South African government says its safety has yet to be proven and has restricted its distribution to a handful of pilot sites.

AIDS activists' advocate Gilbert Marcus, said the state's position was arbitrary, unreasonable and irrational.

He said it amounts to a decision that could cause "potentially thousands of predictable but avoidable deaths of children."

Marcus says that government figures show that almost 23 percent of pregnant women are HIV positive in South Africa, yet only 10 percent of these have access to nevirapine.

Nearly 200 South African babies are born with HIV every day, and studies indicate nevirapine could reduce that number by nearly 50 percent.

Marcus said nevirapine had been registered and approved as safe in South Africa. Adding that he saw the government's refusal to dispense as affecting the most vulnerable sector of society, he said: "The impact of the policy is nothing short of tragic."

State advocate Marumo Moerane argued that the government had to adopt a cautious approach to issuing the drug, and ensure recipients were adequately educated.

"In order to give maximum benefits to pregnant women and children, you have to have phased implementation," he said. "We are trying to be responsible."

Despite being administered nevirapine, women were still transmitting HIV to their children through their breast milk, Moerane said.

Pretoria High Court Judge Chris Botha repeatedly voiced frustration at the state's reasoning, and asked why it had not set targets and timelines for the drug to be made available nationwide.

Describing AIDS as a national tragedy, Botha said: "It seems to me it (nevirapine distribution) has to be extended across the country as soon as is practically possible."

Nevirapine has been used effectively to stop mother-to-child transmission of HIV in a number of countries and is recommended by the World Health Organization.

Around 200 AIDS activists had earlier on Monday marched to the health ministry to demand improved access to medication.

Waving banners reading: "Save our babies," they chanted: "(President) Thabo Mbeki, what you are doing is not right."

The protesters laid white crosses etched with names of children who have died of AIDS on the grey concrete steps of the ministry building before marching to the courthouse.

"People have lost their children because they didn't have the medicine," Julia Matimulale, a 27-year-old AIDS activist from Soweto, a township near Johannesburg told The Associated Press.. "I don't want there to be any more children lost."

More than 4.7 million South Africans -- one in nine -- are HIV positive.