SOUTH AFRICA: Health department starts nevirapine roll-out

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) on Tuesday welcomed an announcement by the Mpumalanga provincial health department that it had begun rolling out antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS to six of the province's biggest hospitals.

On Monday, the department said it had hoped to supply all provincial hospitals and clinics with nevirapine by January 2003.

However, provincial health department spokesman Dumisani Mlangeni, on Tuesday refused to comment on whether any of the hospitals had already received the drug.

Mlangeni told the UN news agency PlusNews: "It is not necessary for us to justify to people with agendas where and when the roll-out has taken place because we always come out as liars."

"The [health] department seems to forget that their responsibilities lie with the public and that by refusing to share such critical information is a violation of peoples' rights to know," TAC's national coordinator, Nonkosi Khumalo said.

Earlier this year the TAC offered to supply nevirapine to hospitals that were prevented from getting the drug.

Mpumalanga has the second highest HIV/AIDS rate in the country, and earlier this month the TAC accused the Mpumalanga Health Minister Sibongile Manana, of defying a Constitutional Court ruling on the universal provision of nevirapine.