Health organisations have demanded that the government should prioritise Anti-RetroViral (ARV) drugs when allocating foreign currency in the same it prioritises energy and fuel. This comes as the country is facing a shortage of ARVs after the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe failed to allocate any foreign currency needed to procure the drugs.
The Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) executive director, Itai Rusike said:
It is professionally unacceptable that the situation was allowed to deteriorate to these levels when the country has the Ministry of Health and Child Care and the National AIDS Council, institutions that jointly superintends over the procurement and distribution of the living-saving drugs.
Both institutions must have raised the red flag well before the situation reached this crisis point if proper monitoring procedures were in place.
The CWGH proposed that foreign currency be prioritised for ARV access (i.e. ARVs be ranked with energy and fuel as a priority claimant on foreign currency) or ARVs would have to be purchased from private sector suppliers at very high prices.
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