HIV/AIDS Drugs Running Low in Uganda

On Friday, Kampala's Daily Monitor reported Uganda's antiretroviral drug supply is dwindling in some areas following procurement delays. Some treatment centers are no longer enrolling HIV patients, according to Tonny Takenzire, an official with the National Guidance and Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV. "Even national referral hospitals would be running out of antiretroviral drugs because the support from the Global Fund [to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria] has been delayed by procurement," he said. The Global Fund supports the treatment of almost half of at least 70,000 HIV/AIDS patients in Uganda. The fund resumed ARV funding in November, after a temporary suspension of Uganda's grant last August due to mismanagement. "The batch of ARVS that people are surviving on at the moment is what was purchased before the suspension of the Global Fund," said Beatrice Were, an AIDS advocate with Action Aid International. "And ever since the ban was lifted there has not been any procurement." "It is true that some drugs have run low and will be running low in all distribution outlets," mostly because there is only one ARV supplier, said Sam Okuonzi, program coordinator for Ernst & Young, the fund's interim country program manager.

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