South Africa: A Priority Disadvantaged Regime

South Africa: A Priority Disadvantaged Regime

It seems everyone in South Africa is warmly welcoming the news of the newly released antiretrovirals (ARV) drugs, called the Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) ARV’s by the department of health, which were launched in April 2013 by Health Minister Elias Motsoaledi.  The FDC drugs are multiple ARV drugs combined into a single pill which helps reduce pill burden for anyone with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and already on ARV’s.  According to the roll-out phase, there are seven priority groups living with the virus however, the drug will be administered to the first two priority groups, priority group one being all new patients taking ARV’s for the first time and priority group two being HIV+ pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers currently stable on FTC, TDF and EFV and the other five priority groups will follow respectively in due course as the FDC drugs become more available.

This is a huge breakthrough in the treatment of the epidemic since its outbreak and claiming many a life, with S.A. Leading the statistics of highest population living with HIV and Aids in the whole world – which leads me to my question – why did it take so long for us as a country to acquire such an important tender?

I understand that the best practice in medicine is research, tests, reporting and certification and that licensing by local authorities for distribution plays its own factors for different countries, although FDC’s combining Tenofovir (TDF), Emtricitabine (FTC) and Efavirenz (EFV) into a single tablet have been available in the United States since 2006 and the original formulation was approved in 2000 already, but South Africa is only getting the drugs seven years after the United States and other European countries.

If this drug combination really simplifies treatment, allowing discreet intake of medication as easy as birth control and also improves treatment adherence, but took us seven years behind other countries yet other technology and research methodologies and infrastructure doesn’t take as long, what is this saying about other African countries that are not as advanced as South Africa but are suffering equally from the epidemic.  Is this a hint that social trends are far more important and easy to access than health, which is the most elementary right in human race – how far apart are we as a United Nations?

(Please feel free to comment below on this article and how you think we can cooperate/collaborate on this issue.) 

Published by Pride Mthethwa