Protest by people with HIV alleging shortage of drugs continues, govt says no medicine scarcity

A group of people who are HIV positive have been protesting outside the National AIDS Control Organisation NACO office here for the past 20 days alleging shortage of certain antiretroviral ARV drugs even as the government maintains there is no scarcity at the state or national levelThe government recently told Lok Sabha that there is adequate stock of ARV medicines nationally for around 95 per cent of people living with HIV in IndiaThe protestors are alleging complete unavailability of certain drugs including those for children living with HIV and random shifting to another class of drugs for most of the patientsThey say if the drugs do not become available in the next few weeks this will lead to serious complications in HIVaffected peopleDolutegravir 50 Mg is the backbone of the National AIDS Control Programme and since April the drug is not available at almost all individual antiretroviral therapy ART centres across the countryAlso Read Thane FDA seizes rapid test kits being sold without licenceWe have written multiple letters to State AIDS Control Society and NACO and health ministry mentioning the shortage of this lifesaving drug but there has been no response Besides DTG another drug TL is also not available one of the protesters saidAnother protestor alleged that Nevirapine syrup a drug for children living with HIV is also not available in most of the centresThe government is claiming that there is adequate stock nationally for around 95 per cent of People Living with HIV who are on first and second line ARV regimens in the country So going by that figure 5 per cent of 1388000 HIV affected individuals are not getting life saving drugs he saidHealth ministry officials said there is no reported stock out for any ARV drugs at the state level and fresh supply orders for procurement of the next lot of several drugs are already placed Individual ART centres may have this issue at times but the medicines are immediately relocated from nearby centres they saidAn official said India is one of the very few countries that provides free antiretroviral medicines for lifelong treatment of more than 145 lakh people living with HIV through 680 ART centres under its National AIDS Control Programme NACP which is fully funded by the government of IndiaThe NACO centrally procures ARV medicines according to national guidelinesThere is an adequate stock nationally for around 95 per cent people living with HIV in India who are on first and second line ARV regimens like tablet TLD Tenofovir Lamivudine Dolutegravir and other ARV regimens the officials saidThe mainstay of treatment for more than 85 per vent PLHIV is Tablet TLD a fixeddose combination of three antiretroviral drugs namely Tenofovir 300 mgLamivudine 300mg Dolutegravir 50mg for which there is sufficient stock nationally to last more than 3 months the official saidTablet Dolutegravir DTG50mg is required for around 50000 PLHIV who are either on Alternate1st2nd or 3rdline regimens or those with TB coinfection officials saidThe Central Medical Services Society CMSS has been requested to supply the first lot of the drugs at the earliest so as to ensure that before the present stock runs out the fresh lot of drugs would have been received the official addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever