India suffers HIV drug shortages

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India suffers HIV drug shortages

INICIO/Noticias Farmacéuticas | Posted 10/10/2014 0 Post your comment

Supply bottlenecks and late payments to drugmakers have hit HIV treatment supplies across India, according to reports in the Indian press. The drug shortages, which affect those least able to pay, have seen some government distribution centres running out of drugs altogether.

Patients on low incomes in India rely on free antiretroviral drugs handed out at state-run healthcare providers supplied by the country’s National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) through a tender process. According to one activist with the medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres, some drugmakers have stopped participating in the tender process over the past year because they were not being paid on time.

India had the third largest number of people living with HIV in the world at the end of 2013, according to the United Nations (UN) AIDS programme UNAIDS. Of the 2.1 million HIV/AIDS patients living in the country, 750,000 depend on the free distribution of drugs through government-run centres, according to NACO.

A senior official at the government-run Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society said they were facing a shortage of three HIV/AIDS drugs – two for treating children and one for adults. The capital of Maharashtra state is Mumbai, the most populous city in India. The society is reportedly looking to get the threatened drugs from other states. India’s Health Secretary has been quoted as saying that he understands the situation is not as bad as it looks, nevertheless, the government is looking into the matter.

The Deputy Director of NACO, Dr Rathore, is reported to have named Indian drugmaker Cipla as one of the firms that is no longer bidding in the tender process. Mumbai-based Cipla manufactures generics of many of the most commonly prescribed antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in the market [1] and it is currently estimated that 40% of HIV/AIDS patients on ARV therapy worldwide take drugs manufactured by Cipla.

Activists in India say that Cipla pulled out because it was not being paid on time by the government, but this is denied by Dr Rathore who says that the company gets more money by exporting drugs out of the country.

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Reference
1. GaBI Online - Generics and Biosimilars Initiative. India’s top pharma company strengthens ties with South Africa [www.gabionline.net]. Mol, Belgium: Pro Pharma Communications International; [cited 2014 Oct 10]. Available from: www.gabionline.net/Generics/News/India-s-top-pharma-company-strengthens-ties-with-South-Africa

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Source: NACO,Reuters, The Times of India