Hussein Bogere
21 September 2007
Kampala — BEGINNING next month, Uganda will start manufacturing generic Anti-Retroviral drugs, giving hope to many living on the life saving tablets.
Two companies; Quality Chemicals Ltd and Cipla Ltd of India will produce the drugs at their plant in Luzira, Kampala. The firms will also manufacture anti-malarial drugs in a move that has been saluted by the Ministry of Health.
This will boost access and affordability of anti-retroviral drugs in the country. Dr Sam Zaramba, the director general of health services, told Daily Monitor yesterday that the time taken to procure the drugs will significantly shorten once production starts.
"We shall not have to wait for shipment," he said. Shipping of the drugs usually takes close to six months, which according to Dr Zaramba can cause problems in case of shortage as patients cannot go a day without taking the drugs. Uganda has experienced a shortage in the past.
The prices, Dr Zaramba, said will be competitive as before, but will be cheaper. Currently a monthly dose of ARVs goes for Shs30,000.
But laboratory and CD4 volume tests, that are a necessary procedure before usage of the drugs, are very expensive. CD4 count shows the status of the body's immunity.
The decline in prices means that more people would access the drugs, enabling Uganda to move closer to achieving the UN Millennium Goal of increasing access to ARVs and reducing malaria-induced deaths by 2015.
According to Dr Elizabeth Madraa, the head of the Aids Control Programme, 100, 000 people currently access ARVs as opposed to the 300, 000 that should. Ministry of Health figures show that Malaria on the other hand claims 320 people in Uganda every day.
According to the Quality Chemicals' Director for Marketing, Mr George Baguma, the $30 million project was borne out of the need to address distortions imposed by India's ratification of the TRIPS agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
"The move threatened to deny Africa access to affordable medicines. Indeed the WTO recognised the predicament that this agreement would impose on the poor countries," he said.
Dr Zaramba said with the manufacturers now here, the government's work of monitoring the importation of anti-malarials and ARVs would be easier.
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