By Anthony Stoppard and Farah Khan

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 5 (IPS) - A glimmer of hope has emerged for HIV- positive pregnant women and babies born with the virus.

Grassroots pressure has forced a rethink from the national government on the provision of potentially life-saving anti-AIDS drugs to these two most vulnerable groups.

After a two-day meeting between the Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and the Members of the Executive Council (MECs) for Health from South Africa's nine provinces, it was decided that those provinces which wanted to roll out a treatment programme faster than the state's official pilot projects could do so.

Until now, the Western Cape (controlled by the opposition National Party) has been the only province to introduce treatment at scale. Officially, there were only supposed to be two test sites per province, where mothers and babies received the drug Nevirapine.

But faced with opposition from at least African National Congress-controlled provinces, government has been forced to allow them to begin better treatment more quickly than Tshabalala- Msimang had wanted.

The health department has been refusing to make the drugs widely available on the grounds that they are toxic and may not be effective in preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS.

It also claims that it does not have the necessary skills and infrastructure to make sure those receiving the drugs are correctly counselled and monitored.

They have the backing of South African president, Thabo Mbeki, who has courted international controversy by publicly questioning the link between HIV and AIDS.

Expert international consensus is that HIV causes AIDS, while anti-retrovirals form the basis of successful programmes to reduce HIV infection levels in many countries.

It is estimated that almost five million South Africans are currently infected with HIV and AIDS.

Despite the department's policy, there has been a flood of reports of doctors in the public health system defying government's position and making anti-retrovirals available to pregnant mothers with HIV or AIDS - in an attempt to stop the virus being transmitted to their babies.

The South African Medical Association (SAMA) has rushed to the defence of doctors who are defying the government's ban on administering anti-retrovirals in the public health system. SAMA represents around 70 percent of South African doctors, both in the private and public sectors.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) - a political ally of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the country's largest labour federation - also have publicly admitted to bringing generic anti- retroviral drugs into South Africa, from Brazil.

The drugs will be used at a Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) programme running in Khayelitsha, outside of Cape Town, where people with HIV and AIDS are being treated with anti-retrovirals.

TAC is an anti-HIV and AIDS lobby group that has been pressuring the government to make anti-retrovirals available in the public health system.

Last year, they took government to court - and won a ruling that the public health system should make anti-retrovirals available to pregnant mothers with HIV and AIDS.

The court also ruled that government should put a comprehensive plan in place to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV and AIDS.

Government has announced that it will appeal the ruling. Because such an appeal may take years to be heard in the South African Constitutional Court, TAC has again taken the government to court. This time to get a ruling that government should be forced to adhere to the original court order immediately, and until such time as their appeal is heard.

The case is expected to come before the Pretoria High Court soon.

In addition, two of South Africa's provinces, the Western Cape and KwaZulu/Natal are defying government policy and have decided to make the anti-retroviral, Nevirapine, available to all HIV- positive pregnant women.

While the ANC does not control these two provinces, they are part of ruling coalitions in both of them.

It has been widely speculated that the health MECs from the other, ANC controlled provinces, are eager to make anti- retrovirals available in their hospitals, as they are under immense pressure from TAC and the medical community to do so.

AIDS activists are hoping the health MECs will take the decision of their meeting with the national minister to ''strengthen existing pilot projects established across the country'' to mean that they can start making anti-retrovirals more widely available to pregnant mothers.(END/IPS/AF/HE/HD/AS/FK/MN/02)