Acquired shortage

India's HIV drug shortage is real and could have been averted 

- TARAN DEOL

THE PAST few months have been particularly tumultous for Jaiprakash. The 44-year-old resident of Delhi is infected with HIV or the human immunodeficiency virus, for which there is no cure or no vaccine. So Jaiprakash, like most other HIV patients an estimated 40 million people are living with HIV globally, as per the World Health Organization (WHO)-depends on a cocktail of drugs to supress the viral load in his blood. The drugs, known as antiretroviral therapy (ART), delay the progression of the infection into acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and result in fatal consequences. In June, Jaiprakash's doctor changed his treatment regimen to help him better fight the infection. But the art centre run by the National aids Control Office (NACO) for providing free medicines, diagnostic kits and other essentials for those in need, did not have stocks of the prescribed drugs. "Of the three drugs prescribed, the healthcare provider at the art centre gave me only abacavir and lamivudine, that too the paediatric versions. I now take 10 tablets a day instead of one," Jaiprakash tells Down To Earth (DTE). To obtain the third drug, dolutegravir, which who recommends as the "preferred first-line treatment" because of high efficacy and fewer side-effects, Jaiprakash took a desperate step in July.

"Through our support network I learnt that an HIV patient at Delhi's Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, who was on the same treatment regimen, died. His drugs were thrown in the garbage bin and I retrieved them," he says.

Jaiprakash knows that the drugs retrieved from the garbage are not going to last long. So since July 21, he has joined about 40 other HIV and AIDS patients in protesting the shortage of ART drugs at NACO's office in New Delhi.