Moscow Times Examines How Drug Shortages in Russia Are Leading Doctors to Prescribe Replacement HIV/AIDS Meds to Patients

In Russia, some patients living with HIV/AIDS, whose regular drug therapy was replaced by "another, less preferable drug," are bringing lawsuits against state-run treatment centers in the hopes of returning to their preferred drug regimen, the Moscow Times reports. "Supplies were delayed nationwide this year because the Health and Social Development Ministry, which buys medicine for HIV patients once a year, was two months too late initiating a tender for suppliers, Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Federal AIDS Center, said in a telephone interview," according to the newspaper. The article examines the reports of HIV drug shortages at clinics throughout country, and describes the side effects from medications patients can experience when switching HIV/AIDS medications. The piece profiles a woman living with HIV/AIDS who brought a law suit against an treatment center and was placed back on her original HIV/AIDS medications, and describes how patients' concerns over social stigma may lead them to avoid this approach (Krainova, 11/16).

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