The South African government has indicated it will not immediately comply with yesterday’s court ruling obliging it to expand access to a drug to help HIV-positive pregnant women save their babies from AIDS.
Pretoria High Court Judge Chris Botha ruled yesterday that the government was obliged to roll out a national programme to provide the low-cost AIDS drug nevirapine to pregnant women.
"Government is studying the detail of the judgment in order to establish its premise, including such critical issues as the role of the judiciary in relation to executive policy decisions," the health department said in a statement issued last night.
"This will help inform government's future course of action," it said, adding that it could make an announcement early next week.
Observers said they believe the government will appeal against the decision.
The AIDS activist group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), backed by doctors, launched the court action, arguing that the government had a duty to offer nevirapine under the constitutional right to health treatment.
Between 70,000 and 100,000 babies are born HIV-positive every year in South Africa, which has more people living with HIV-AIDS than any other country in the world. One in nine South Africans are estimated to be HIV-positive.
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 government also said in its statement, as it has before, that it was committed to extending the drug to all state clinics and hospitals, but would wait for the results of a small nevirapine pilot project it launched earlier this year.
A health department spokesman said he was not sure when the project would end or when the results would be available.
Under yesterday’s court ruling, the health department has to return to court by March 31sy to show how it will offer a national nevirapine programme, which the government has so far refused to do citing cost and safety concerns about the drug.