Email

Print

Today, he told us they have managed to borrow some stock from Trinidad:

Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"We have a loan that is coming from Trinidad and Tobago. I don't know when the arrival date of that is going to be."

Reporter
"The loan of the medication?"

Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"Of the medication until the medication that we have procured arrives in the first week of December."

Reporter
"What is your understanding in terms of the population who is affected with HIV and how they are managing with this shortage?"

Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"Well I know that one medication I think we had stocked out. We did stocked out of a triple combination, but we still had the 3 medications in separate pills, so you would not be getting a pill and I think that was one of the story that was on the news when we look at what the patient was not going to get that one pill, but they could have gotten the 3 medications separately, so you have to take 3 pills instead of one. Inconvenient, but it's an opportunity and what the rules will tell you is that if you have only 2 of the 3 medications, then you at least taking that until the other medication comes along."

Reporter
"This issue in particular has raised a lot of criticism, people are saying this is a human rights issue in terms of having the medication available. What would the ministry respond to people who are saying these things?"

Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"I think it's a difficult situation and I don't want to make comparisons. I come from the HIV field where we lobbied and got to where we were. It's a collective effort. That's not an excuse, but it's how do you try to make sure that it doesn't happen again. How do you defend smaller economies such as ours when you're having issues across the country?"

Manzanero says the antiretrovirals wear only out of stock in Belize City.

The full supply in December will come from India.