Tag: HIV-positive infant

HARARE, 11 January 2013 (PlusNews) – Chronic shortages of generic and antiretroviral drugs, stock-outs, high medication costs, and long distances to clinics are some of the hurdles people face in their quest to access essential medicines in Zimbabwe.

At any given time, public health facilities in much of Zimbabwe have in stock only half of a core set of critical medicines, according to findings from civil society groups working to improve access to medicines in Southern Africa.

Zimbabwe is still recuperating from a drastic decline in health services caused by sub-optimal investments in healthcare and an unprecedented economic crisis in 2008, during which the local currency crashed.

To make matters worse, over 80 percent of the country’s drugs are externally funded.

“Unsustainable”

A poorly resourced local pharmaceutical industry can barely provide the country with its essential medicine requirements, and government-backed institutions, such as the National Pharmaceutical Company of Zimbabwe (NatPharm), which is mandated with securing drugs and healthcare products on behalf of state institutions, are struggling to survive. Continue reading “ZIMBABWE: Still Struggling with Drug Shortages”

KAMPALA, 7 January 2013 (PlusNews) – Uganda continues to fall short of achieving its goal of ensuring that 80 percent of people living with HIV receive antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) by 2015, according to the Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC).

Some 62 percent of those needing HIV treatment were on ARVs in March 2012, up from 50 percent in 2010. Uganda managed to enroll an estimated 65,493 new HIV cases on life-prolonging ARVs in 2012, bringing to 356,056 the number of those receiving ARVs, according to UAC statistics.

But just 8 percent of these cases were children. A recent government survey has revealed that just 49 percent of infants in need of treatment are receiving it. (The government recommends that all HIV-positive infants under age two receive ARVs.) Some 20,000 to 24,000 children are infected with HIV each year, according to the Ministry of Health. Continue reading “Uganda Still Behind on HIV/AIDS ARV target”