They say the local ones cause side effects, an investigation by The Zimbabwean has revealed. This has promoted the flooding of ARVs in the parallel market, posing a serious health risk to those using them.
ARVs are subsidised by government, but recipients are required to pay at least $6 as user fees for a month’s supply. On the black market they cost $25 per one month’s supply.
Gibson Nyamayaro (not real name) of Tafara has been on ARVs for five years now. He says since he started to take ARVs Parirenyatwa Hospital his skin has become pale – so he now buys the drugs at Mupedzanhamo market in Mbare.
Side effects
“I have found the ARVs I buy from the market helpful to my health and I am convinced that the imported drugs are better than those which we get from our local clinics and hospitals,” he said. “My skin is normalising since I abandoned the free ARVs.”
Soneni Murambiwa of Glenview 8 said the government ARVs were “distorting my body shape”. “I was becoming shapeless and would not like myself,” she said.
Judith Morwei (42) of Epworth said the drugs were affecting her legs. “For the past three years I have been taking the ARVs from Harare Hospital, but I was developing swollen legs. My legs were becoming big as if I had elephantiasis. Last year when I abandoned the drugs I felt relieved,” she said. “My brother, who is also HIV positive, and once had the same problem that was when I decided to abandon them.”
Some of the side effects experienced by HIV patients emanating from the first line ARVs included body deformity, big breasts and buttocks development, deformed face and swollen legs.
The Zimbabwe HIV and AIDS Activist Union Community Trust said scores of its members had been crippled by the first line AIDS treatment. The president, Stanley Takaona , said they had been complaining to government that the drug was causing some discomfort to patients.
A balance
“We have some people who are in wheel chairs as we speak because of Stavudine. There is also a teacher who was seriously affected by this drug and we had to rush to the government and raised the issue and that was when he was quickly put on another regimen,” said Takaona. “We know that the drug has some side effects – but it is a matter of balancing between the side effects and your life and this was what we tell our members.”
Takaona confirmed that his organisation had received reports of patients who were buying ARVs on the black market thinking that they were better than the local ones that were causing side effects.
Zimbabwe dropped the first line HIV treatment drug (which had three tablets) last year and adopted the new single tablet per day that combines three drugs – Tenofovir/Lamivudine/Efavirenz.
The director of the Ministry of Health’s HIV and TB unit, Dr Owen Mugurungi, confirmed that there were complications associated with the first line of HIV treatment.
He said although every drug has side effects the most common ones caused by stavudine were parasitism (Chiveve). But he discouraged people with HIV from buying ARVs from the streets because of the health risks associated with the practice.
Same source
“The problem we have is that people do not value free things. Even the condoms we give for free they think they are of poor quality. The same applies to the ARVs. But the drugs we purchase come from the same source where those found in South Africa, Botswana and even the whole world are obtained,” he said.
“First and foremost, there is no need to buy ARVs on the black market because we provide them for free. Second, when things are on the black market there are issues around quality. We have heard people saying those ARVs from South Africa and Botswana are of better quality than ours, but we are buying them from the same supplier! Even those coming from the UK we are buying them from the same source in India. So when does it happen that ours are of poor quality? So I think it is also a perception that we need to work on to make sure that people value the free things that we are trying to give them,” he added.
The government estimates that there are 1.3 million people who are living with HIV, 187,000 of them being children under the age of 15 years. Out of the total estimated HIV positive population, half are receiving Anti-Retroviral Treatment.
HIV prevalence currently stands at 15% down from over 27% in 1997, with 500,000 people believed to have lost their lives to HIV over the past 16 years.
Post published in: News