But health activist Margaret Happy says there is no shortage of the drugs in Uganda. She is with the National Forum of People Living with HIV.
“At facility level, it is very severe. However, at national level the situation seems to be very different.”
The Ugandan Ministry of Health says the country has enough ARVs to last until December. Ministry official Rukia Nakamette says there is a shortage in some areas because clinic workers do not know how to use the government’s new online ordering system.
Ms. Happy disagrees.
“National level transfers blame the local level. Yet the local level they have evidence that clearly shows that they make the right quantification, and make it timely. The problem is with delivery.”
In Zambia, where more than 500,000 people are infected with HIV. The government there has severely limited the number of ARVs it releases to clinics. Officials are not calling it a “shortage” of the drugs but a “rationing.”
Chikuta Mbewe is the deputy director of the country’s pharmaceutical services. He says part of the problem is that the government is now giving a drug to HIV patients that is different from the one they have been getting. He says this has caused lowered supplies of both. But he says the situation will improve.
“There a lot of planned shipments that have already started arriving in the country. We think we are in the normalization curve, so to say. We hope we can get back to our normal levels.”
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25