MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Shortage of HIV medication for patients under state-run health care in Argentina causes grave concern

“We are facing a systematic plan to dismantle and emptying public health care,” said GEP Foundation President José María Di Bello.

The GEP Foundation Monday reported the lack of medicines which comprise the antiretroviral schemes used by the 86,338 people with HIV who are under antiretroviral treatment in Argentina.

 The organisation said their findings show shortages of efavirenz and the darunavir / ritonavir and tenofovir / emtricitabine / efavirenz combinations dating back to June 2019 and project that as of August another 15 antiretroviral drugs will become unavailable to patients under the state's care.

Acquisition processes may take up to three months, GEP explained in a statement, making it urgent for patients that it is worked out at the earliest time possible.

GEP claims this outcome was to be expected after the government of Mauricio Macri slashed the health budget at the beginning of the year. People with HIV are not receiving their medications in hospitals and health centres nationwide, the foundation reported. GEP finds the reductions in funding to be unacceptable and in violation of the fundamental rights of citizens who need an active State to secure their needs. “The government's actions are criminal and premeditated,” said Lorena Di Giano, Executive Director of the GEP Foundation.

Although there are only three records of purchases that were initiated in May and June this year, there was a lack of planning and predictability by the National Directorate of AIDS and STD, which depends from national health authorities. The time it takes to purchase and distribute medicines nationwide will leave thousands of people without their drugs, their therapies interrupted. And it might get worse overtime. “In these four [Macri] years, three directors of the Directorate of National AIDS and STD have resigned,” GEP said.

”Since 2015 at GEP Foundation we (...) point out irregularities in the execution of budgets. It is very serious to reach this instance, it shows that it is not about inoperance or administrative errors. If we add to this the lack of vaccines, medicines for other pathologies - such as Tuberculosis -, the downgrading of the Ministry of Health to a Secretariat and the emptying of community health programmes, we are facing a systematic plan to dismantle and emptying public health care. These manoeuvers only seek to impose [an] undercover privatisation of health care through an insurance system. This government considers that health is an expense and not a right. Without medications we die,” said GEP Foundation President José María Di Bello.

(Source: GEP Foundation http://fgep.org/es/)