The health ministry has said no to Truvada for now. Truvada is the first prevention drug to reduce the risk of HIV infection which was introduced in the international market.
The Ministry of Health says they still opt for the existing prevention and treatment. The Ministry’s strategy to prevent the vulnerable group who are at the risk of contracting the disease and promoting the use of condoms will deviate if the drug is introduced in Bhutan.
The Programme Manager of the National HIV/AIDS Programme, Namgay Tshering, who recently participated in the AIDS conference in Washington DC, said weighing the pros and cons of the drugs, it was found that Truvada is not too feasible to be used in the country.
“If you take the drugs, there might be a possibility of drug resistance strength of HIV being developed in you. And in case you turn HIV positive, the current ARV (Antiretroviral) drugs will not work on you because you would have already developed the resistance.”
He said lot of studies have shown that the drug reduce the risks of contracting HIV in healthy person by only 73 percent, provided that the drug are taken consistently. “So you can’t be negligent.” He said it will be safer to use the drug, if it reduces the risk of contracting HIV by 100 percent. “And owing to the technical incapacity of our country- we may not be in a position to take that risk.”
The Programme Manager said, experts from the UN AIDS suggest that the ARV functions almost like the truvada. He also added that Bhutan hasn’t reached the stage to use the drug. Bhutan has only about 0.1 percent of its population who are HIV infected.
“If this drug is very effective, the government won’t hesitate to buy them and treat our people,” said Namgay Tshering.
Truvada was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration by mid July this year.
