India facing serious shortage of HIV/AIDS drugs

Even as the United Nation sets ambitious goals of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030, India continues to battle with antiretroviral drug shortages, one that could derail the impact of the various free interventions and scaled-up prevention strategies under its National AIDS Control Programme, reports The Pharma Letter’s India correspondent.

Health activists have pointed out that shortage of essential HIV and AIDS medicines are proving to be a major obstacle to the success of one of the largest free antiretroviral treatment program in the world.

"The drug shortage has ensured that health centers are unable to dispense the complete amount of HIV drugs to patients. The lack of second line and in some cases first line HIV therapy (a combination of zidovudine, lamivudine and nevirapine) across the country has been putting patients at the risk of developing drug resistance to current treatment," said Vikas Ahuja, president of the Delhi Network of Positive People.