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Durban - More than 10 percent of all medical centres in the country have experienced stock-outs of HIV and tuberculosis (TB) medicines in the past three months, jeopardising the health of millions of South Africans.
The findings are part of a new report released on Thursday by a civil society coalition comprising organisations including the Treatment Action Campaign, Medicines Sans Frontières and the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society under the banner of The Stop Stock-outs Campaign.
In September and last month, the campaign interviewed about half of the health facilities in the country.
One in five health centres surveyed reported shortages of HIV and TB medicines in the past three months.
The Free State was the worst affected province, with more than half of facilities surveyed reporting stock-outs.
In Gauteng, about 20 percent of all health centres had gone without the vital medications - putting the country’s richest province on a par with the impoverished Eastern Cape. Ekurhuleni and Joburg were among the province’s worst offenders, with about a quarter of health facilities reporting shortages.
About 8 percent of all clinics surveyed nationally reported that the newly introduced FDC ARV was missing from their stockrooms. About 20 percent of health centres nationally reported sending patients home empty-handed during stock-outs that lasted about a month, in some cases.
Budget cuts and poor financial management may be some of the culprits driving the country’s medicine stock-outs.
More than 2 million South Africans are on HIV treatment and about 300 000 are treated annually for TB. The campaign estimates that about 90 000 HIV patients were directly affected by the shortages.
But Dr Francesca Conradie, president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, cautions the worst may be yet to come, as the stock-outs could lead to drug-resistance.
This can develop when HIV and TB patients are unable to take their daily treatment. Developing drug resistance means patients must be switched to more expensive regimens with more possible side-effects. For TB patients, it can also mean running out of treatment options altogether.
Conradie said the campaign plans to continue monitoring stock-outs to check whether shortages can be linked to rising resistance rates but, in the meantime, it is clear stock-outs are unravelling years of work devoted to HIV and TB treatment adherence.
Department of Health spokesman Joe Maila said while they were taking the report seriously, “we are running one of the largest treatment programmes in the world, with over 2.4 million people on treatment, so we are going to have these kind of challenges, but to suggest it’s a ‘national crisis’ is not correct”.
Health-e News Service; additional reporting by Mishack Mahlangu
The Mercury
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