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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Health must enroll women in HIV / AIDS treatment combination treatment recently introduced by October. The government launched last year a new, more effective drug combination therapy, tenofovir-lamivudine-dolutegravir, commonly referred to as TLD, but HIV women were excluded from access. Women of childbearing age have been excluded from treatment for fear of probable side effects, such as conbad malformations such as spina bifida.
But the ministry, according to AID control program manager Dr. Joshua Musinguzi, is the process of notifying the national antiretroviral therapy committee of the new World Health Organization directive.
The WHO said this week that tenofovir-lamivudine-dolutegravir or TLD could be used as the preferred first-line drug for all pregnant women, including women of childbearing age.
He stated that he had already informed the senior management of the ministry and that he is now waiting for an agenda on how to proceed with the national adaptation process.
He says the plan is to use the old stocks that were planned and available so they would not run out so that the drugs would expire in the stores because of the new change.
Once guidelines have been approved by the National Antiretroviral Therapy Committee, women will eventually be enrolled in the TLDs. The three combination drugs are included in the WHO guidelines for antiretrovirals that have been consolidated for HIV since 2016.
Figures from the Ministry of Health show that by the end of June, 400,000 out of 520,000 people living with HIV had been initiated into the TLD.
According to Musinguzi, it is expected that all 1.2 million Ugandans eligible for this treatment will be enrolled.
He has already said that the WHO recommended that children of 25 kg and over be also enrolled in this drug.
Ugandan antiretroviral drug manufacturer – Cipla Quality Chemicals began manufacturing the drug last year.
Uganda, along with 91 other countries in low-income countries that adopt TLD, has access to the cheaper generic version produced by India-based drug manufacturers – Mylan Laboratories (MYL.O) and Aurobindo Pharma (ARBN.NS).
This was concluded as a result of an agreement between pharmaceutical companies to cap the price of doses at $ 75 per patient per year in order to make the drug inexpensive so that poor countries could access it.
The TLD or tenofovir-lamivudine-dolutegravir is also more tolerable, with fewer side effects.
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