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Aids drugs running out in Zim
03/05/2006 12:35 - (SA)
Harare - Desperately-needed anti-retroviral drugs for HIV/Aids patients are running out in Zimbabwe, reports said on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe has been hard-hit by the HIV/Aids pandemic and at least one in five members of the country's 11.6 million people is believed to be HIV-positive.
But only 20 000 people are on a life-saving programme of anti-retrovirals, known as ARVs, and now there is only one month's supply of the drugs left, the acting managing director of the National Pharmaceutical Company (Natpharm) was quoted as saying.
"We have less than a month's supply of the vital drugs and that is not encouraging," Charles Mwaramba told a parliamentary portfolio committee on health and child welfare that recently toured Natpharm, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported.
Cancer patients at risk too
It is vital for people who have started on ARVs to continue their courses uninterrupted, so that drug resistance does not develop.
Most of Zimbabwe's ARVs are imported from overseas, said Mwaramba. But the country's foreign currency crunch has made continued imports more and more difficult.
Mwaramba said that Natpharm had applied for 7.4 million US dollars from Zimbabwe's central bank to boost ARV imports between January and March this year. But the bank was only able to grant Natpharm 106 000, a tiny fraction of its needs, the Herald reported.
"We understand that drugs are also competing with other items like fuel for foreign currency but the picture is not encouraging," Mwaramba said.
Zimbabwe's foreign currency shortages have caused havoc to many sectors of society. There are now serious shortages of fuel, electricity, blood supplies, machinery and some foods.
In a separate report, the Herald said Zimbabwe's only two radiotherapy machines had broken down "putting all cancer patients that require radiation treatment at risk."
One machine, located at Harare's Parirenyatwa Hospital, has not been working since March, the newspaper said.
The report said that in the past experts would have been brought in from neighbouring South Africa to mend the machines "but this has become unsustainable." - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA
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