International News

Uganda Receives TB Drugs from Global Fund

From U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

April 21, 2009

In mid-April, Uganda received its first shipment of TB drugs from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria since a medication shortage began six months ago.

"The TB drugs we have received from the Global Fund will help address the current shortage we have been experiencing in the country," said James Kazooka, Uganda's minister of state for primary health care. The ministry expects a second shipment of TB drugs soon, he said.

The $15,700 consignment arrived four years after the Global Fund suspended all grants to Uganda, citing serious mismanagement of funding by the Project Management Unit in the Health Ministry. The delay in ensuring proper oversight led to drug shortages in many areas of the country.

Kazooka dismissed reports in the Daily Monitor newspaper that doctors at Gulu Reference Hospital in northern Uganda dealt with the drug shortage by dispensing expired TB drugs. "We can't give out expired drugs to patients," he said. "There is no doctor who can do that," he said, as expired drugs are disposed of by the ministry.

Back to other news for April 2009

Adapted from:
Xinhua News Agency
04.17.2009

This article was provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update.

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