Stock out-Swaziland

Swaziland Positive Living (SWAPOL), Swaziland Nurses Association, Positive Women Together in Action and ASARA called on the government to ensure supply of essential medicine at all levels of the health system, including TB and HIV prevention, diagnostics and treatment, drugs for treating certain opportunistic infections, and supply of masks for staff and visitors of TB hospitals.

Recently, the country faced a shortage of TB drugs due to a three-month delay in paying for shipments of these drugs. The Ministry of Health also banned nurses who give patients prescriptions for medicine that is out of stock in clinics, leading to the patients purchasing these drugs from private pharmacies at inflated prices.

Civil society groups also met with Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, and brought the issue up at the meeting.

BACKGROUND

Since 2006, incidence of ARV drug stock-outs occur on a regular basis in Swaziland due to a problem with the procurement system of drugs and other medical supplies. While the majority of people depend on public health facilities for the provision of ARV treatment, it is reported that patients are given prescriptions to buy at local pharmacies for a higher than normal price.

Negative consequences of stock outs include decreasing treatment efficacy, treatment failure and compromising patients’ adherence to treatment, which leads to drug resistance problems and result in unnecessary deaths.

In January, Swaziland Positive Living in collaboration with other civil society partners succeeded in solving the problem of TB drug stock outs by conducting public advocacy and issuing press statements to call for the government to take the following actions:

a) Develop a procurement system and regulations that will have structured rational drug forecasting, buffer stocks and parallel procurement and distribution arrangement.
b) Identify and blacklist corrupt companies who are selected for procurement of drugs.
c) Stop buying from companies who do not deliver drugs on time.
d) End all practices which may inflict permanent damage or even death of people who depend on the provision of treatment from public health facilities.
Read initial article on the stock-outs