MACS urges
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, August 03 2022:
Manipur State AIDS Control Society has appealed to the People Living With HIV (PLHIV) community to not panic over news and social media posts of Anti-Retroviral (ARV) drugs being out of stock.
To this effect, Manipur State AIDS Control Society has presented the status of ARV drugs in Antiretroviral Therapy Centres (ARTCs) under the Society through a statement.
The statement shared that there are 13,802 PLHIVs currently on Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) in the State under the care of Manipur State AIDS Control Society and out of this, 11,769 (85%) are on TLD (ARV medicines) .
Manipur State AIDS Control Society has enough TLD stocks for 4.78 months as on August 3, it added.
However, for some of the paediatric medicines, which are low in stock, Manipur State AIDS Control Society is managing with adult ARV medicines through dose management, the statement maintained.
It may be mentioned that all ARV drugs are Centrally procured and supplied by National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) .
However, since May 5, State AIDS Prevention and Control Societies (SACSs) have been instructed to locally procure some of the ARV drugs.
Accordingly, Manipur State AIDS Control Society has completed the first procurement of three medicines and the second round procurement for 4 paediatric medicines and 7 adult medicines are under process.
Manipur State AIDS Control Society also assured that in extreme conditions of total stock out positions of the medicines, as per NACO directive, individual PLHIVs can purchase the medicine for not more than one month and reimbursement can be claimed from Manipur State AIDS Control Society.