The attention of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS has been drawn to the above-titled news piece published in your June 3, 2015 edition.
We hereby state the fact of the matter. HIV/AIDS treatment is dynamic; almost every year, better innovative ways of treatment are discovered. Once discovered, the more effective, safer and more readily available products replace the older products.
In such situations, the older medicines are expunged from the treatment guidelines. Such expunged products are withdrawn from circulation and disposed off as un-usable products. HIV treatment guidelines have been reviewed and updated several times in the last few years. This will lead to eventual expiration of older products that were withdrawn.
Since 2012, NACA has led the National Procurement and Supply Chain Management Technical Working Group for HIV/AIDS commodities. This group includes supply chain experts from the Federal Ministry of Health, NACA, the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other implementing partners.
This group oversees all procurement of HIV/AIDS commodities in the country and monitors its warehousing and distribution. The commodities are pooled together, irrespective of funding sources; and distributed the same way across facilities. This has led to remarkable improvement in the HIV/AIDS commodities supply chain.
The technical working group also oversees the national quantification of HIV/AIDS commodities, and, therefore, all procurements by NACA are based on the national treatment guidelines and actual needs of facilities. These are determined through the data collected from facilities across the country.
Note that there is also adequate budgetary provision for distribution of all NACA procured commodities, and there is a supply chain management calendar drawn by the group that carries out monitoring and supervision on a quarterly basis from the centre.
Therefore, the allegation of “irrational procurement” is completely unfounded and therefore regrettable.
To be clear the chairman of the said committee, Mr. Egbuta Okibe, has denied knowledge of any budgetary allocation for the destruction of expired drugs by the health ministry.
It is not true when the reporter wrote, “When contacted, the Public Relations Officer, NACA, Mrs. Toyin Aderibigbe, responded through a text message that she would investigate the scheduled destruction and get back to our correspondent, but she had yet to do so as of the time of filing this report.”
Indeed, two officials of NACA – the PRO, Mrs. Toyin Aderibigbe; and the Head of Procurement, Mr. Bravo Otohabru – did get in touch with him, giving him the above information on May 31 and June 1, 2015.
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