Nigerian anti-AIDS program hit by drug shortage
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LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigeria's ambitious anti-AIDS programme has been hit by a scarcity of generic drugs, dashing the hopes of a longer lease on life for thousands living with the deadly HIV virus, campaigners and patients said on Monday.
In 2002 Nigeria launched Africa's biggest AIDS control programme aimed at distributing cheap generic drugs from India.
But campaigners say the 25 treatment centres set up by the government to distribute antiretroviral drugs to an initial 10,000 adults and 5,000 children at the subsidised monthly cost of 1,000 naira ($7) per person, have run out of supplies.
AIDS Alliance Nigeria president Lt Commander Nsikak Ekpe told Reuters supply at the centres had been erratic since September. "Some of them are even known to have given expired drugs to patients," he added.
Ekpe said the government's anti-AIDS agency, the National Action Committee Against AIDS, had said it was strapped for cash and could not order fresh supplies.
Government officials were not available for comment.
Some HIV sufferers have resorted to the open market for the cocktail of drugs at prices ranging from 7,000 naira ($52) to 30,000 naira ($221), depending on location.
Around two thirds of Nigerians live on less than $1 a day.
"The situation has been very depressing. I have to look for money every month to buy the drugs for myself and my two children," one woman told Reuters, asking not to be identified.
"But I am lucky because I am still working, many people have lost their jobs and can't afford the drugs."
She said there were no generic drugs for children in Nigeria but many parents just give them either half or a quarter of the adult dosage depending on their ages.
Bede Eziefule of the Centre for the Right to Health said the government had politicised the antiretroviral programme.
"What we want to see is that the drugs are available at the government centres and not the political statements that officials are making all over the place," Eziefule told Reuters.
"Many people have died because of the scarcity and many others who are no longer consistent may soon develop resistance to the drugs."
Figures from the health ministry and UNAIDS indicate that around 3.5 million of Nigeria's 130 million people are afflicted with the HIV virus.
With a 5.8 percent prevalence rate, Nigeria has crossed the five percent threshold after which analysts say the epidemic begins to grow exponentially, straining not only the country's health resources but threatening its social and economic future.
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Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
