Dagi Kimani, Special Correspondent
26 January 2004
Nairobi — INDIA'S RANBAXY Laboratories and Emcure Pharmaceuticals have been awarded Kenya's multi-million shillings Aids drugs tender, amidst complaints of irregularities by losing bidders.
The losing firms allege that the tender for the Aids drugs, which appear as items 47 and 48 in the general Ministry of Health procurement notice MOH/02/2003-2004, was awarded to the two despite them not being the most competitive bidders financially, or even as far as ancillary support to the Ministry of Health was concerned.
Emcure was awarded the first part of the tender to supply 57,600 doses of a drugs combination comprising the ARVs stavudine, lamivudine and nevirapine. This drug combination is expected to comprise the core of Kenya's Aids treatment programme.
Ranbaxy won the second part of the tender, to supply 14,400 doses of a combination comprising the ARVs efavirenz, stavudine and lamivudine. This combination, which is expected to comprise the second line of treatment, will be used to treat HIV-positive people also on treatment for tuberculosis.
In total, the government will spend over $2 million on the drug supplies.
According to one complainant who spoke to The EastAfrican, his company had failed to win one of the components of the tender despite their quotation being at least $100,000 lower than that offered by the Indian firm which finally won.
"$100,000 might seem a small figure but one has to remember that this medicine is expected to be taken for life, and the government will have to procure them on a continuous basis," the complainant said, adding that, "In the long run, cost savings of this kind, which can be used to treat more people, become very significant with time."
The jockeying surrounding the Aids drug tender, as well as those for other Aids-related supplies, are believed to be linked to Kenya's potential as a major market for HIV treatment products, given the country's high prevalence rate, its good standing among donors such as the Global Fund for Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis, and the government's stated aim of putting at least 150,000 Kenyans on ARVs in the next three years.
Curiously, letters to companies which had failed to win the tender, signed by J.G Gakuo of the Ministry of Health, were dated December 23, just two days before Christmas.
They reached the affected companies well into the new year. The letters, however, did not specify why the companies had failed to win the tender.
Other bidders were several Nairobi-based drug companies, including the local representatives of several multinationals and indigenous firms such as Cosmos Pharmaceuticals Limited, which last year announced its readiness to roll out generic anti-retrovirals at short notice.
Speaking to The EastAfrican last Thursday, Dr Charles Kandie, the director of the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (Kemsa), the body which co-ordinates drug supplies in the country, exonerated his department from the tender awarding, saying that Kemsa was not involved.
"Kemsa is just a department in the Ministry of Health and does not procure drugs and medical supplies," Dr Kandie said. "We will probably assume the function from June, by when we hope to have become a parastatal."
Dr Kandie, however, said he had received several complaints on the contentious tender asking for "clarifications," which he said he had forwarded to the ministry headquarters.
With controversy dogging it every step of the way, the Aids drug tender, the first the Kenyan government has engaged in, is emerging as one of the most contentious drug procurement processes the Ministry of Health has undertaken in recent times.
The drugs procured through the tender are meant to treat at least 3,000 HIV-positive people in Kenya's pioneering public treatment programme.
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