Russia's drug-supply system leaves HIV patients wanting.

摘要

The explanation was short. "My doctor just said there were no more tablets, they hadn't received them", remembers Svetlana. In August, 2010, the 27-year-old from Tula, an industrial city in western Russia, had gone to receive her monthly dose of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs from the regional AIDS centre. "They changed my treatment scheme and for 3 months I had to take a different course of drugs", says Svetlana, who was diagnosed with HIV 10 years ago. Now she worries that the virus might have built up resistance to the drugs she was prescribed before the change. "I'm upset, of course", she says. "I wantt o live." Svetlana's situation is far from unique. In 2010, the Russian branch of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition undertook a monitoring project called Simona+ to assess the scale of shortages of ARV drugs in 20 cities.