Russia: People suffering from MDR-TB have not been receiving treatment for 5 months
Patients with tuberculosis claim they have not been receiving medications for treating multi-drug resistant forms of tuberculosis. Patients must take these medications non-stop, otherwise the disease starts to progress causing patients’ death. At the same time, during the recent press-conference on the World TB Day representatives of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation reported that the state spent 2.4 billion roubles for the procurement of TB drugs in 2011, and provided patients with free treatment.
Having got tired of promises, on the 28th of February a group of patients chained themselves to the fence in front of the Healthcare Committee of Saint-Petersburg. The representatives of the Committee asked one of the participants inside to start a dialogue. According to the officials, the medications had not been purchased due to technical difficulties related to contracts for subsidies allocated for such purchases, and the process of transferring those subsidies from the federal budget. The officials promised to solve this problem during the following week. However, over the next month there were no changes. Therefore, several non-governmental organizations from Saint-Petersburg sent a letter to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service asking for explanations.
Alexandra Volgina, advocacy officer of NP “E.V.A”, activist of the movement “Patients in Control”: “How many times can you brag about successes and achievements in TB fight, allocate huge amounts of money, and then fail with medications – time after time? Such a laissez-faire approach can lead to a significant increase in cases of intractable forms of TB, and then you won’t be able to solve this problem with all your billions!”.
Another factor exacerbating the issue is a break-up of preliminary agreements between The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the Russian Country Coordinating Mechanism to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on financing the 5-year program of counteracting multi-drug resistant tuberculosis on the territory of the Russian Federation. The program was supposed to provide vital treatment for 18,000 patients suffering from severe forms of multi-drug resistant TB, as well as 1700 patients co-infected with HIV and TB, 60% of whom are prisoners. The grant size amounted to more than $130 mln. Although the Directorate of the Global Fund approved the Russian application at the beginning of 2011, the funding was not provided. The reason for the termination of the agreements was the change of the Russian Federation’s status in financing the Global Fund – Russia has become a donor and is now claiming that it doesn’t need help from the Global Fund and is ready to help other countries.
Andrey Zlobin, chairman of the organization “Community of People Living with HIV”: “The Directorate of the Global Fund had been notified about the new donor status of Russia before the approval of the grant in 2010. However, the Secretariat of the Global Fund took their words back. Unfortunately, the Global Fund, a body created with the purpose of protecting patients’ interests, took a certain place among many international organizations playing political games with Russian officials”.
The situation with the disruption of the supply of MDR-TB medications in Saint-Petersburg has revealed all the possible manifestations of covert interests of officials, bureaucratic acrimony, sluggishness of purchasers and disguised wars of the pharmacological companies. Unless Russia has a well-functioning system of uninterrupted supply of life-saving medications, patients will have to go out in the streets to claim their right to live. Desperate people are ready to file lawsuits and go to the State Prosecutor’s Office. Besides non-governmental organizations, the Ombudsman’s Office in Saint-Petersburg is also trying to solve this problem.
Contacts for the mass media:
Natalia Utrovskaya
Press-secretary of NP “E.V.A”
+7 911 945 53 92
Utro2004@gmail.com
NP “E.V.A” –Non-commercial Partnership of Advocacy for Improvement of the Quality of Life of Women Affected by the Epidemics of HIV-infection and other Socially Significant Diseases