No problem with ARV supply: MSF Holland

Dec 22, 2006 (DVB)—Medicines Sans Frontier-Holland said yesterday there were no problems with the supply of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs from their Thazin clinics in Burma amid rumours the group would no longer treat patients.

MSF Holland’s country manager Dr Frank Smithuis told DVB the group’s clinics continued to operate.

“We are not stopping . . . now we are able to treat more patients each year,” Dr Smithuis said.

Rumours have spread among clinic staff and patients that the group was no longer issuing ARV drugs to HIV/AIDS sufferers. Some sources close to the clinic speculated that government interference or internal issues in MSF Holland were resulting in less drugs being available.

Smithuis said that while not everyone who came to the clinics would be given treatment, this was due to limits on patient numbers enforced by MSF Holland’s head office in Amsterdam.

“In 2006 we can treat 4000 (patients). In 2007 we will treat 6000 . . . so the numbers are increasing,” he said.

Several HIV/AIDS sufferers told DVB they recently travelled from their villages to Rangoon after hearing that the Thazin clinics would be able to treat them. They said the clinics turned them away and that they did not know where else to go.

“I, at least want to live as long as I'm suppose live. What I heard about this medicine is, it can make you able to hold on longer. But we can't have it now and that makes me really depressed,” one sufferer said.

Dr Smithuis said more treatment centres were likely to be opened by other aid groups in the near future.

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