The plight of people living with HIV/AIDS

Sep 07, 2010 Editorial

The shortage of antiretroviral drugs will lead to the death of hundreds of people living with HIV/AIDS because by the time they begin to get the renewed supplies their bodies would have developed a resistance. This is a cold fact.
Many questions now arise. What caused the delay? Did the Ministry of Health not monitor the supplies on hand to know that stocks were disappearing? Has there been a rapid increase in the number of people requiring the anti retroviral drugs to the extent that the numbers severely taxed the supplies?
We know that Guyana, through the new Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation, set about manufacturing the anti-retroviral drugs. The raw materials were imported and the manufacturing process began. The various tests saw some hostility developing between the Minister of Health and the head of the Government Analyst Food and Drug Administration.
The Analyst was not satisfied that the various controls were in place while the Minister of Health wanted to insist that the production aspect begin and so help Guyana with the crisis it was facing at the time. In the end the Minister used his power to good effect and production began. However, it turned out that the production had to be halted because the drugs produced did not pass inspection by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Ewe began to receive supplies from India, which had earlier begun to supply the raw material. People were assessed and drugs administered according to their status. Such was the system that Guyana began to record a decline in the number of cases of people living with HIV/aids. We started to boast. It did not matter that we planned to sell the antiretroviral drugs that we produced to the other Caricom countries. It also did not matter that we had stopped producing the drugs. The cold fact was that we were taking care of our infections.
The bottom fell out of the programme in July when people turned up at clinics for their supplies and found that there was none. The various support programmes had worked assiduously to get people to take the anti retroviral drugs. The fact that the drugs caused people to become violently sick in the early stages was a major problem.
Those who braved the illnesses and persevered wanted to live. These are the people who were made to suffer when Guyana suddenly discovered that there were no drugs for the people who needed them.
Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy has been answering questions about the situation. He said that he has had to borrow supplies from Suriname and Jamaica. What he has not said is that those who have had to go without their medication could develop a resistance to whatever cocktail they have been taking within twelve hours.
He has also not said that this is the second time within three months that Guyana has been without adequate supplies of the anti retroviral drugs. It therefore means that Guyana has lapsed with its monitoring of drug supplies.
Some people have had to go without medication for as long as eleven days, a frightening situation when one considers that Guyana is in a desperate fight to contain the dreaded disease.
These are the people who are now panicking. They bore the brunt of the horrible feeling that accompanied the introduction to the anti retroviral drugs and now they are of the view that all their efforts have been in vain.
The first of these were those who were patients of the Genito Urinary Medicine (GUM) clinic. The others who attend the outlying clinics began to experience problems not long after. This is something that will have far-reaching effects. Guyana is not going to change the drug regimen for the few who may have developed a resistance.
Already we are receiving complaints that the CD4 count of the people who were on the drugs is dropping, a sure sign that the disease is taking hold. There will be many tearful households in the not too distant future, a fact that we may not want to accept but a grim reality never the less.

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The plight of people living with HIV/AIDS

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