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South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) on Monday called on the government to provide nevirapine in clinics throughout the Eastern Cape province.
TAC said despite a constitutional court ruling last year for a countrywide nevirapine roll-out, Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile was slow in keeping his end of the deal.
"Stofile's promise to provide nevirapine throughout all of the provinces' clinics have fallen through," TAC provincial coordinator, Ivy Ntlangeni, told the UN news service, PlusNews.
Ntlangeni said the drugs were available in only seven of the provinces' clinics and women had difficulty accessing them.
"We are concerned that the Eastern Cape has been the slowest in properly implementing these programmes. This is not enough," Ntlangeni said.
Research has shown that nevirapine helps reduces the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV by up to 50 percent.
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