Anti-AIDS drugs near expiry date

Much of Zambia's current stock of anti-AIDS drugs in the public health sector would expire by August, the Health Permanent Secretary Dr Simon Miti has disclosed.

This situation had arisen because people were choosing to access their drugs through private practices, the permanent secretary recently told a parliamentary committee on health.

Miti was quoted by a local newspaper, The Post, as saying: "People prefer to go to private doctors for discretion, and access their antiretroviral drugs from there ... very few people go to public health centres for the drugs."

Since so many drugs would go to waste if nothing was done, Miti said, the Ministry of Health and the Central Board of Health had decided to give some of the drugs to the private health sector to administer.