Medicines
to cost more
By Tom Mogusu and John Oyuke
Kenyans
should brace themselves for hard times as the cost
of imported pharmaceutical drugs are to be increased
by 10 per cent from Monday.
It
will now cost more to purchase medicine and the
hike may further complicate the Government’s efforts
to provide affordable healthcare to all Kenyans.
Sources
in the pharmaceutical industry said the increase
had been occasioned by the new East African Community’s
Common External Tariffs (CET) regime.
Patients
with chronic illnesses that require continuous medication
will be hit hard by the new prices, which
may
force the Government to look for other ways of increasing
its budgetary allocation for healthcare.
Efforts
to talk to Government officials on the impact of
the new
development
on healthcare provision and how it was preparing
to deal with the increase proved fruitless as most
remained tight- lipped.
The
Director of Medical Services, Dr James Nyikal was
said to be in a meeting for the better part of yesterday
afternoon.
However,
players in the pharmaceutical industry were positive
that the 10 per cent tax, to be backdated to January
1, 2005, would add to the harsh economic times facing
Kenyans.
"What
will come as a surprise to many is that Kenyans
have never paid duty for drugs since Independence
except for import declaration and clearance unlike
Uganda and Tanzania
where
import duty has always been paid," said Moses
Mwangi, the regional manager of Aventis Pasteur
S.A, said in an interview.
Tanzania
and Uganda have been charging a 10 per cent duty
on imported drugs, while Kenyan importers and distributors
have been paying just 2.75 per cent.
"With
the new Customs Union, Kenyans must now pay a 10
per cent import duty. This is a cost that must be
borne by the consumers and we expect the cost of
human medicine to increase by 10 per cent,"
Mwangi said.
Drug
companies are expected to announce their respective
new prices next week. Some sources said only insulin
and switches, mainly used by the diabetics, would
be exempted.
"Our
clearing agents have informed us that we will have
to start paying the duty and this will automatically
be passed on to the consumers," Mwangi said.
He
said pharmaceutical companies had also received
communication from the Kenya Revenue Authority informing
them about the new development "and the fact
that all drugs coming into Kenya must part with
a 10 per cent import duty."
Health
minister Charity Ngilu had announced this week that
the number of patients on free Aids treatment would
be increased to 95,000 by the end of the year.
Currently,
only about 24,000 patients out of 300,000 have access
to anti-retroviral drugs.
"
We have been putting resources in place and we are
now ready to scale up the treatment," Ngilu
who was with a delegation from the UNAids and donor
agencies said in Nairobi on Tuesday.
UNAids
executive director Peter Piot said he was happy
with the progress made by Kenya in reducing Aids
infection rates by 13.6 per cent in 1997 to seven
per cent in 2004.
Top
AFRICA:
Glaring lack of child ARVs and slow rollout
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations]
©
IRIN
Stephen Lewis
UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa |
JOHANNESBURG,
19 January (PLUSNEWS) - Children have been left
out of national programmes to provide anti-AIDS
drugs, the UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa,
Stephen Lewis, said on Tuesday.
Although about 2.2 million children were HIV positive
- at least two-thirds of them in Africa - paediatric
antiretroviral (ARV) formulations were still not
widely available and ARV rollouts were being assembled
as if children did not exist, Lewis said during
a press conference.
"In
the instance of antiretroviral therapy, the scenario
for children is, quite simply, doomsday," he
warned.
Treatment
for children is not that simple. Pharmaceutical
companies have not yet developed fixed-dose combination
treatments in dosages appropriate for them, and
physicians often have to portion out a cocktail
of three separate adult-dose medicines in different
combinations as the child grows.
To
determine correct paediatric doses most effectively,
caregivers should ideally use the three drugs according
to the surface area of the child - a number obtained
by a complicated formula of multiplying the child's
weight by its length, dividing by 3,600, and then
taking the square root of that number.
Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF), which has been publicly campaigning
for child ARVs, claims that children living with
the virus are needlessly dying because medicines
have not been simplified for widespread dispersal.
The medical humanitarian agency alleges that because
most children with HIV/AIDS live in the developing
world, there is little commercial interest in creating
and marketing child-friendly treatments, and instead
children are given small portions of adult doses.
Speaking
about his recent trips to Malawi and Tanzania, Lewis
also called on governments to involve people living
with the virus in their programmes.
"It
is a matter of continuing concern that lip service
almost everywhere characterises the attitude and
behaviour of government towards organised associations
of people living with HIV/AIDS. It's hurtful and
it's painful," he said.
Nevertheless,
progress was being made in implementing ARV programmes
and the World Health Organisation's '3 by 5' initiative
- three million people in the developing world on
antiretroviral therapy by the end of 2005 - was
"driving the agenda" in Africa, he noted.
In
Malawi the biggest drawback has been the lack of
trained healthcare workers, with the Ministry of
Health experiencing a vacancy rate of 67 percent.
As a short-term measure, the British Department
for International Development (DFID) was going to
raise the salaries of local healthcare workers by
50 percent to reduce migration, he said.
Tanzania
has estimated that 450,000 people need antiretroviral
treatment, and although the government was aiming
to treat 220,000 by the end of 2005, there have
been "endless difficulties" in implementing
these targets - the rollout was initially planned
to kick off in March 2004 but was delayed until
October.
The
government has taken "some strikingly intelligent
steps" by providing free generic fixed-dose
combinations (FDCs) twice a day for first-line interventions,
and allowing the US President's Emergency Plan for
AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to provide free drugs for second-line
interventions, as well as for paediatric care.
However,
Lewis remained sceptical as to whether the rollout
had actually begun. "Somehow the desperate
sense of emergency has just begun to grip the bureaucracy.
The president is fully engaged, but his appeals
to urgency are only now penetrating the wider political
establishment."
"The
change in priorities can't come soon enough,"
he added. "Everywhere we went, people were
clamouring for treatment."
