South Africa's government said it would appeal a high court ruling that HIV-positive pregnant women are entitled to a drug found to reduce a new-born’s risk of contracting the virus.
The south African minister for health, Mr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, said the government had instructed legal counsel to appeal the judgment to the Constitutional Court.
The decision is likely to provoke an outcry from AIDS activists and child health workers, who say President Thabo Mbeki's government has acted too slowly in fighting mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
The Pretoria high court ruled last Friday that the government had a constitutional duty to expand access to the anti-retroviral drug nevirapine, which has been shown to cut mother-to-child infection rates by up to 50 percent.
AIDS activist group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), backed by doctors, had launched the court action, arguing the government had a duty to offer nevirapine under the constitutional right to health treatment.
Between 70,000 and 100,000 babies are born HIV-positive every year in South Africa, which has more people living with HIV-AIDS than any other country. One in nine South Africans is estimated to be HIV-positive.
Under the court ruling, the health department was ordered to return to court by March 31 to show how it would offer a national nevirapine programme. The government has refused to do because of cost and safety concerns.
There are side-effects from nevirapine, but medical experts say they are limited and the drug is a life-saver.
Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim, which makes nevirapine, has offered to provide the drug free to South Africa for five years.