{"id":9070,"date":"2019-09-02T17:06:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T21:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plataformalac.org\/?p=9070"},"modified":"2019-09-02T17:06:19","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T21:06:19","slug":"medicine-shortages-in-argentina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/2019\/09\/medicine-shortages-in-argentina\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicine shortages in Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Argentina, shortages of antiretroviral medicines to\ntreat the infection and preventive and diagnostic supplies for HIV, hepatitis\nand STIs, as well as in the sexual and reproductive health program have\nintensified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By: <\/strong>Corresponsales Clave<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the GEP Foundation published a\npress statement with specific details about the lack of antiretrovirals for the\nrest of 2019 and the risk related to budget allocation for 2020. This\nFoundation conducts constant monitoring through the Observatorio de Acceso y\nCompras P\u00fablicas (Access and Public Procurement Observatory), which allows to\nsupervise antiretroviral stocks. Along with today\u2019s news brief, they published\na detailed report of what is lacking and what will lack in the future. The\ninformation can be found .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After asking some sources close to the\nDirecci\u00f3n Nacional de Lucha contra el Sida, la Tuberculosis, las Hepatitis\nVirales y Lepra (National Directorate to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, Viral\nHepatitis and Lepra) about the situation, they have confirmed the numbers are\nreal, and they could be worse, since there is no precise information on\ninventories and pending purchases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claudia Rodr\u00edguez, National Director of\nthe Program, and her superior, Miriam Burgos, Assistant-Secretary of Prevention\nand Control of Communicable and Vaccine Preventable Diseases, are the ones who\nhave to respond to this situation. They are more focused on blocking any\ninformation leak about shortages than solving the crisis. Both officials of\nthis austerity and firm hand regime report to the degraded Minister and Vice\nMinister of Health, who are suggesting a significant budget reduction for the\nhealth sector for second year in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purchases are delayed because of the\nchronic calamities of bureaucracy, which has always been useful for hiding the extent\nof that reduction. In several occasions in the past, the Directorate has opted\nfor expensive emergency purchases to exceed its sleeping bids. It is very\nlikely this will happen again this year, and savings made thanks to the\npurchase through the PAHO Strategic Fund\u2013which has allowed the country to save\nhundreds of millions in the past by having access to generic versions of\nantiretrovirals\u2013will be lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We quote word by word today\u2019s statement<\/a>\nby Lorena Di Giano, CEO of GEP Foundation: \u201cUnfortunately,\nwe have confirmed what we had foreseen when he heard about the government\u2019s\nbudget reduction for the health sector in 2019. People with HIV are not\nreceiving their medicines at hospitals and health centers in different regions\nof the country. The reduction is unacceptable and violates the fundamental\nrights of citizens who need an active State to cover their needs. The actions\nof this government are criminal and deliberate.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Ministry of Health was\ndowngraded to a Government Secretariat, when the former National Director quit,\nhe had stated there were medicines for a year. That year is over. What has his\nsuccessor done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are planning something by delaying\nARV and supply purchases, and hiding it from civil society and media companies.\nEven worse, they are telling health professionals in the public system to make\npatients switch to other available medicine schemes, such as dolutegravir. When\nthe medicine is out of stock, at least two treatment options will be ruined for\nmany people with HIV due to a poor management of programs and resources. The\nSecretariat does not purchase nor distribute milk formula or condoms, and soon\nthere will be a shortage of supplies for viral load testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People with HIV who leave hospitals empty-handed\nor with staggered deliveries confirm the crisis. Likewise, organizations\nrelated to HIV and AIDS receive dozens of shortage complaints every day. The\nadministration of the former Directorate had required around five billion pesos\nfor 2019, yet it is estimated that only three billion were allocated on paper.\nWith the current devaluation and inflation, it was pretty obvious that crisis would\nbecome worse. The immunization program has the same problem, as well as that of\nsexual and reproductive health, and many other areas which depend on the health\nsector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The constitution states that health is a\nright, so a body of historic laws and appeals demand the Executive to make\ndecisions to ensure full access to prevention, treatment and health care for people\nwith HIV or people vulnerable to the infection. It is clear that program\nleaders are not suitable nor responsible, but this is not casual, as it is part\nof a savage reduction policy in various sectors, such as health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who are to blame for it, Rodr\u00edguez\nand Burgos, prefer to be silent, and we know that silence equals death when it\ncomes to HIV and AIDS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All articles can be shared and published provided the source is cited.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Argentina, shortages of antiretroviral medicines to treat the infection and preventive and diagnostic supplies for HIV, hepatitis and STIs, as well as in the sexual and reproductive health program have intensified. By: Corresponsales Clave Today, the GEP Foundation published a press statement with specific details about the lack of antiretrovirals for the rest of 2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66,74],"tags":[],"anho":[],"autor":[],"publicado_por":[],"palabras_clave":[],"class_list":["post-9070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-response-aids-tb-malaria","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9070"},{"taxonomy":"anho","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/anho?post=9070"},{"taxonomy":"autor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/autor?post=9070"},{"taxonomy":"publicado_por","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publicado_por?post=9070"},{"taxonomy":"palabras_clave","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/palabras_clave?post=9070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}