Over 300 patients in limbo when government’s supply of multi-drug resistant meds runs out
These are patients who are battling to survive with the highly infectious strain of TB.
Most of them are using second-line drugs which are the last line of combinations that could be used. They are supposed to be on treatment fulltime, taking a combination of injections and tablets everyday for a period exceeding 18 months.
The country is struggling to get adequate supplies of capreomycin, an important drug.
It is taken as an injection.
Themba Dlamini, Director of the TB Centre in Manzini, has confirmed that there is a shortage of the drug capreomycin.
Dlamini said the centre ran short of the drug for a couple of days when patients who had come for the injection were turned back.
However, he said on Thursday the centre received a supply of the drug from Doctors Without Borders, which lent them a few drugs to keep the centre going.
The patients fear for their lives.
They are scared that they could develop resistance to this second line drugs and have nowhere to run to now since the second line is the last line in MDR treatment.
They are all praying that their body accepts the drugs when they are re-administered to them.
*Zodwa Dlamini (43) is frail and very sickly.
She has been fighting the dreaded combination of TB and HIV in her body since 2005 and has suffered several relapses of TB due to an inconsistent supply of drugs.
She is now using the last line of drugs, the same she had to live without for at least two weeks after the Manzini TB centre suffered a drug outage recently. Her strain is deadly and highly infectious and if she does not get drugs immediately, she might die. The people she lives with are also at huge risk.
They could be infected with a strain of TB that is not easy to treat.
Even though she suffers from a highly resistant TB strain, she roams the streets of Manzini, probably infecting other people.
At home she lives with four minor children, who are exposed every day to the worst strain of the TB that she is infected with.
She said nurses had tried to test these children for TB but she declined to give them permission.
“My fear is that it would torture me to death to know that I have infected my children,” she explained. Ideally, patients like her, according to medical experts are supposed to be hospitalised in isolated areas but due to weaknesses in the country’s health institutions she stays at home.
She now fears for her life and that of the four children she lives with in Mbekelweni.
She says if she dies, she wants the world to know that government played a role in her death.
She said, “I religiously took my medication only to be let down by the outage.”
She is clear of the consequences associated with stopping TB treatment without finishing the whole course. “The relapses I have suffered since 2005 are a results of the inconsistent supply of the drugs by government.”
Zodwa believes that had she had a consistent supply of drugs, she would be TB free by now.
Via (Swaziland Times)
Posted 1 year, 11 months, 1 week, 1 day, 23 hours, 45 minutes ago
