New HIV Drug Regime In Use Beginning April. 5/1/11
Malawi will introduce a new HIV drug regime as response to side effects
5 January 2011
From July this year, Malawi will introduce a new HIV drug regime as response to beneficiary rising concerns on side effects of a current cocktail. The Department of HIV/AIDS and Nutrition says people on ARVs are experiencing a lot of side effects.
Department Principal Secretary Dr. Mary Shawa says Malawi will spend 96 million United States dollars an equivalent of 134 billion Kwacha every financial year to make the new drugs available.
Unlike the ARVS, the new regime is more expensive.
The ARVs cost Malawi 38 million USD in a financial year an equivalent of 53 billion Kwacha.
The principal secretary says currently government has adequate funds to procure drugs up t0 2012.
Changing from the old to new drug regime, Dr. Shawa disclosed, is already in process and by July everybody on ARV treatment will be receiving the new drugs.
The transformation to the new drug regime has already begun with HIV positive pregnant mothers.
Several people on the current HIV drugs have been complaining of side effects which they say easily disposes them to stigma since people easily tell that they are on treatment through the body changes.
Dr. Shawa indicated that the new regime has fewer side effects compared to the current one.
Since the inception of free anti retro viral treatment in 2003, Malawi has enrolled an estimated 250 thousand people on the program.
About 180 thousand people enrolled in the program are still alive and 23 thousand of these are children