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Mother-to-child AIDS drug stays

    JOHANNESBURG

    South Africa's Ministry of Health will continue providing the anti-AIDS drug Nevirapine as a monotherapy to mothers and babies until new treatment regimens become available.

    This follows an earlier statement by the country's Medicines Control Council (MCC) that it had withdrawn registration of the drug because it caused "significant resistance" - a potentially serious problem for HIV-positive mothers.

    Concerns about the efficacy of the drug surfaced after research conducted by the MCC, manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases revealed that some mothers had developed a resistance to the drug, making it uncertain whether transmission of the HI virus was being blocked or not.

    "It must be emphasised that the MCC did not recommend that the use of Nevirapine be stopped altogether, but that it should be used in combination with other drugs, because it is showing a significant resistance ... Also, the drug has not been deregistered as indicated in media reports," a local newspaper, Cape Argus, quoted Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as saying.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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