lakhs of AIDS patients in the country can now hope to get their daily dose of free anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs regularly under the national programme as the Government has scrapped customs import duties for medicines and test kits used to treat the deadly disease. This is expected to make cheaper for the drug manufacturing firms to import raw materials that are used to make anti-retrovirals (ARVs) under the national health programme across the States.
In the past few months, due to erratic or nil supply of the drugs and kits at the centres under the government-run public health programme, several HIV patients have to either depend on the costly medicines available in the open market or have to live without them, risking their lives. Huge shortage of the drugs and kits has been attributed to the supply bottlenecks, late payments to drugmakers and a few others. The Central Board of Excise and Customs on June 10 issued a notice as per which custom import duties exemption has been given to certain first-line and second-line antiretroviral drugs used to treat adults and children, as well as to certain diagnostic kits and equipment that are used by NACO, the sources said.
They added that the drugs under exemption make up roughly 95 percent of the antiretrovirals used by the AIDS patients under the national programme. The treatment and control of HIV, including dispensing drugs and testing, is handled by the Government through its 355-odd centres. Out of 2.1 million HIV/AIDS patients in India, about 750,000 people depend on the free distribution of drugs through these outlets, according to NACO.
Currently, US firm Mylan Inc and India’s Aurobindo Pharma supply AIDS drugs to the government program. India had the third largest number of people living with HIV in the world at the end of 2013 and accounts for about four out of 10 people living with HIV in the Asian region, according to the UNAIDS.
Of the over two million HIV-infected people in India, four States —Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu — account for 53 per cent. While the medicines are available in the retail market at a cost, the ones dispensed at government-owned centres come free. As per NACO guidelines, patients adhering to the treatment should get the medicines for at least a month.