Geneva – The Global Fund, a partnership that sends HIV drugs to poor countries, said it shipped a 12-month advance supply of antiretroviral therapy to Uganda, amid shortage since September 2015. Seth Faison, the Head of Communications of the Fund, on Tuesday in Geneva, said that the first consignment of the new supply would arrive in Uganda in February. He also acknowledged that as a short-term solution, the Fund had already delivered shipments of drugs as scheduled for existing patients and also front-loading an additional 12-month supply of drugs. “The government needs to mobilise resources to fill the gaps and find a long-term solution.” Seth said there were series of complaints and concern that not less than 240,000 patients on publicly funded treatment programmes were affected by the shortage. He said the shortage has forced them to modify their treatments or stop altogether. Faison said in Uganda about 1.5 million people, or about 4 per cent of the population, live with the HIV virus.
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He said more than 820,000 of the infected population received antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, which help keep the patient’s viral load low and prevent transmission. Joshua Wamboga, Head, the Uganda Network of AIDS Service Organisations (UNASO), said that “drug holidays” when a patient stops taking prescribed medication, could spur the development of drug-resistant HIV strains. He said it could cause patients to be more vulnerable to opportunistic infections, like malaria. “NO ARVs means death. “If you have a virus that kills you and you don’t get treatment, you die.” Meanwhile, Ugandan government said a weak currency and insufficient foreign exchange had hampered its ability to finance drug imports. While some activists said they suspected runaway election spending was behind the shortfall, but officials denied the charge. President Yoweri Museveni is seeking to extend his three decades in power in the Feb. 18 presidential elections. The Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a public-private partnership set up in 2002 which has made impressive progress in tackling epidemics of those three deadly infectious diseases. (Reuters/NAN)