The Minister of State minister for Health, Elioda Tumwesigye told a news conference at the Uganda Media Centre yesterday that; "the Ministry of Health would like to assure the public that there is absolutely no shortage of ARVs in the country, contrary to media reports published in today's New Vision."

He said that in the case of Masafu General hospital, in Busia district the shortage was due to an under quantification during requisition which gave rise to the emergency. The order of quantities entered into the web based system by the Masafu bio statistician matches the allocation by National Medical Stores (NMS) and delivery to the facility.

In Nebbi district, where the district health officer was quoted as saying that the NMS supplied only two out of eight health centres, delivery records available with ACP indicated that NMS dully delivered medicines to all the eight facilities. The records were showed to journalists.

Tumwesigye called upon government facilities to ensure that they place timely and correct orders to avoid inadequacies of medicines and health supplies at the facility level. The Director General health services, Jane Ruth Aceng, called upon people living with HIV/Aids to always liaise with ACP to get correct information about the stock status of ARVs in the country to avoid unnecessary anxiety.

Currently, according to ACP records, there are 1,669 accredited facilities that are supplied with ARVs on a bi-monthly basis. And last financial year, the government made a decision to scale up the enrollment of clients on ARVs and make drugs available to all who need it.

The target was set at 100,000 new clients annually but as of June this year, 566,460 people were on ARVs as compared to 372,785 as of June 2012, implying an increase in enrollment by 193,675 new clients which is 194 per cent above target.