After several months of scarcity, fresh supplies of
antiretroviral drugs for Nigeria's tottering HIV/AIDS
treatment programme are now available. They are expected to
reach the 25 treatment centers across the country by end
February.

The drugs - nevirapine, stavudine and lamivudine - generic
versions of antiretroviral treatment for people living with
HIV, arrived the Central Medical Stores in Oshodi, Lagos
last week. They are worth 250 million naira (or about
US$2million).

Coordinator of the Network of People Living with HIV in
Nigeria (NEPWHAN), Dr. Pat Matemilola, who was at the
Oshodi central stores last week Tuesday, confirmed the
development.

The drugs arrival would put an end to the anxiety of over
14,000 Nigerians living with HIV on the treatment
programme, many of whom were forced to interrupt their
regimen when supplies ran out in most of the centres late
last year. In addition to depleted stocks, distribution of
expired drugs and inadequacy of trained personnel had been
some of the major problems threatening to jeopardize the
gains of the national treatment programme.

Before the drug stock-out, the programme, which commenced
in January 2002, was widely hailed as one of Africa's most
ambitious national treatment programmes.

Also confirming the arrival of the drugs, Dr. Oni Idigbe,
Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical
Research (NIMR), told our reporter last Sunday that
bureaucratic procedures caused the delay in the purchase of
the drugs, more than three months after President Olusegun
Obasanjo approved a lifeline of N500 million for that
purpose.

Idigbe, who is also a member of the national ARV advisory
committee, said that although the president had approved
the N500 million request made by the Ministry of Health
last November for the purchase of the drugs, finance
ministry officials insisted that the approval had to go
through 'due process'. After that obstacle was cleared, the
finance ministry said that the approval did not have the
required 'cash backing'. It took presidential approval for
a 50 per cent waiver, before the ministry released the sum
of N25O million for the purchase of the drugs.

To avoid a recurrence of supplies shortage as was witnessed
in the last three months, the ARV committee has recommended
a decentralization of the drug distribution system, which
will ensure that treatment centres make direct request to
the stores themselves whenever they are in short supply,
our reporter learnt.

In addition, instead of wholesale advance purchase of a
year's supplies (a development that led to the issuance of
expired drugs), quarterly purchases would be made.

A technical committee has also been set up to assess levels
of resistance developed by PLWA who had interrupted
treatment as a result of the ARV stock-out. The committeeÂ’s
findings are expected to guide government on appropriate
second line regimens to be made available for those shown
to have developed resistance to the first-line drugs.

In a related development, Dr. Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, deputy
director in the federal ministry of health who was directly
in charge of the ARV programme, has been redeployed to a
new position. He is now to head the ministry's tuberculosis
and leprosy control programme. Dr. (Mrs) Salawu, formerly
heading the malaria programme, will now run the ministryÂ’s
HIV/AIDS response team, including the ARV programme. The
changes, which were described as 'routine', took effect
from this week.