Malawi Govt. intensifies drug monitoring system, to curb ARVs smuggling
Government has assured members of the general public that it has intensified the drug monitoring system in order to seal all the loopholes which have been giving opportunity to some individuals to steal government drugs.
Public Relations Officer for the Ministry of Health, Henry Chimbali said the Ministry has worked out ways of ensuring that all the drugs in the country are not being acquired illegally.
“We have developed a monitoring system which will enable our drugs not to be taken out of the country illegally so that Malawi’s based drugs should be adequate to our hospitals,” said Chimbali.
Some patients who are on antiretroviral drugs that are being used to prolong the lives of patients infected with HIV/AIDS – ARVs- expressed optimism that the new monitoring system would help in curbing the problem of shortage of ARVs in some of the hospitals as it was reported in the media that such drugs were being sold in South Africa.
“We sometime fail to get the drugs in time because we are told there are inadequate ARVs but we were saddened to hear that some of these drugs were being sold on the local market or exported abroad by some unscrupulous traders.
“The big question we ask is: where do these traders get the drugs? However, now we are happy to hear that government has developed a new monitoring system which will help us because we do not have other alternative in such cases,” said one patient who opted for anonymity.
Chimbali further said he could not disclose how the system will be working to avoid jeopardizing the whole effort.
Though some patients have been complaining of inadequate drugs in the hospitals, the media has been awash with reports that unscrupulous traders have been found on several occasions selling government drugs in the streets or abroad.
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