LAHORE: A life-saving drug vital to fight AIDS has run out of stock in Punjab.

The Punjab Aids Control Programme provides a combination of three drugs to its registered patients through its nine treatment centres/special clinics across the province.

An official said one of the three drugs, Tenofovir tablet, had not been available at the PACP designated centres/clinics since the last two weeks or so. The patients, he said, had no other option because it was not available in the market as well. He said non-availability of its doses for some days might increase the viral load and severely affect the health of AIDS patients. In some cases the missing doses also increased the chances of ‘irreparable complications’.

The reason behind the shortage was said to be delay in the procurement of the drug by the National Aids Control Programme, Islamabad.

Punjab Aids Control Programme Director Dr Salman Shah told Dawn that the programme faced shortage as the medicine expired on Sept 30 and its procurement delayed due to some reasons.

He said the PACP returned the stock of expired medicine to the National AIDS Control Programme a week ago.

Dr Shah said the PACP had registered 3,000 patients living with HIV/AIDS all over the province and of them 1,300 were advised daily use of the combination of three medicines.

He said the combination of highly advanced drugs was recommended to fight the HIV infection and increase the host's life expectancy.

“If the first line of treatment fails to control the virus load due to non-availability of medicines or any other reason, the patients will have to shift to the second line of drugs,” Dr Shah said.

He said the PACP had been receiving HIV/AIDs medicines from the Principal Recipient (PR) of the Global Fund National AIDS Control Programme on a quarterly basis. He said the delay was on the part of the PR section.

“We have already written to the PR section about the non-availability of the medicine,” he said.

Senior PR official Dr Rajawal Khan said the programme has faced the shortage for the first time due to some procedural delay in importing the HIV/AIDS medicines.

He claimed that the medicine would be available within a couple of days in Punjab.