MESSAGE FROM TAC - Treatment Action Campaign

GIVE WOMEN A CHOICE! GIVE CHILDREN A CHANCE!
TAC APPEALS FOR GLOBAL SOLIDARITY IN MOTHER-TO-CHILD-TRANSMISSION (MTCT)
COURT CASE

On the 26-27 November 2001, South Africa will witness a court case that can
help to alter the course of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in our country. The
Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) calls on your support and solidarity to
save people from unnecessary death and suffering. We ask you to encourage
our government to change its tragic course in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. At
heart, this court case is about giving women a choice and children a chance.

Across our country nearly 300 000 women with HIV will give birth this year.
The majority do not know their HIV status and are not given information or
medicine that can reduce the risk of HIV transmission to their children. As
a consequence, at least 70 000 children will be infected with HIV during
labour and through breastfeeding. They will suffer an unnecessary painful
death.

The government has the resources and the opportunity to give women a choice
to look after their own health and a chance to prevent their infants from
becoming infected with HIV. But, it has dithered and reacted
unscientifically, unlawfully and with no morality to calls for the
implementation of MTCT prevention programmes.

For more than five years civil society, initially led by the AIDS Law
Project and the AIDS Consortium, have lobbied government to implement MTCT
programmes to reduce HIV transmission to infants. Since December 1998, TAC
has led the call for government to take action.

We have petitioned, negotiated, written appeals, organised workshops and
conferences, publicised the
need for government action -- all to no avail.

In March 2000, Judge Edwin Cameron made the following appeal to the
government in the presence of t
he Minister of Health at a national conference of people living with
HIV/AIDS:

"Since 1994, very detailed and careful scientific and medical studies have
been done on how to reduce the risk that a mother with HIV will transmit it
to her baby during or after birth. The overwhelming scientific consensus is
that effective anti-retroviral medication can be made available in a
developing country to reduce transmission. Every month in our country,
approximately five thousand babies are born with HIV. Medicines exist that,
now, can reduce this figure by half. Economists have done detailed studies
that show that this medication can be made available cheaply and affordably.
Their studies have also shown that, from a purely economic point of view, it
is better to save young babies from getting HIV than to let them fall sick
and die of
AIDS, and that intervention will save the country money.
"So overwhelming is the medical, scientific and economic consensus on these
points, that many people find it almost impossible to understand why our
Government is still delaying the immediate implementation of programs to
prevent mother to child transmission of HIV.
If government commits itself to helping pregnant mothers, it will throw a
beam of hope onto the entire epidemic. It will throw a beam of light onto
all our lives. If babies can be protected from exposure to HIV by giving med
icine to their mothers, then all of us can hope that progressive
implementation of an accessible drugs programme will save many more lives in
South Africa and in our continent as a whole."

The government has spurned every opportunity to do the right thing. Despite
the TAC's unshakeable support for the government during its court battle
with the drug companies, TAC has had no option but to defend the rights of
poor women with HIV and children against the government. For TAC, legal
proceedings were our last resort - they give people who have lost faith in
the government's commitment to address all aspects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic
a legitimate and legal avenue to defend their constitutional rights to
healthcare access, life, dignity and equality. We are not opposed to our
government. We are opposed to the misguided and unconstitutional actions (or
lack of them) on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. You can consult our
court papers at www.tac.org.za [2]

In August, we appealed publicly to the Government to abandon its opposition
to the orders TAC is seeking from the court: access to Nevirapine for women
and children who need it (under proper medical supervision), and a clear
national programme to prevent mother to child HIV transmission. The Minister
of Health spurned this appeal.

We therefore appeal to every person in South Africa and across the globe to
support TAC's court action. We urge you to write letters of support to TAC
at the following address:
TAC National Office
Town One Properties, Sulani Drive, Site B, Khayelitsha. Tel: +27
(0)21-364 5609 Fax: +27 (0)21 36
4 6653 Email: [email protected] [3]

Where possible, TAC requests supporters in South Africa to attend the
hearing in court or to join demonstrations. We request that international
allies arrange meetings with the South African Embassies to urge the South
African government to settle the court case.

Please do not hesitate to make further enquiries.

Yours sincerely
Siphokazi Mthathi (TAC)
Cati Vawda (Children's Rights Centre)
Dr. Haroon Saloojee (Save Our Babies)