Ethiopia Quickly Collected Nevirapine-based ARVs

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Lead Paragraph/Summary

Given recent guidance from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to immediately discontinue dispensing of adult nevirapine (NVP)-based antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV, the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project in Ethiopia is leading the charge to collect such regimens.

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men loading boxes of old HIV treatment medicines onto the truck
men loading boxes of old HIV treatment medicines onto the truck
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Logistics officers are loading nevirapine containing ARVs for reverse logistics at health facility in Ethiopia
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The global HIV/AIDS community has pushed for this swift move away from NVP-based adult ARVs because they have been designated suboptimal by the World Health Organization. With help from the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Supply Agency, GHSC-PSM has identified 1,082 health facilities and 537,459 total units of adult nevirapine based stock for collection from these health facilities.

Within six days of approval from the Ethiopian government, GHSC-PSM covered 82 percent of targeted health facilities and collected 89.5 percent of the total NVP stock in those facilities. This quick action could only be accomplished through close collaboration with local partners to identify health facilities with the highest volume of NVP stock and support its collection and transportation to a central storage location. GHSC-PSM’s efforts in Ethiopia and other countries needing to quickly eliminate use of NVP-based ARVs will ensure patients have the safest and most effective medicines. While helping to move away from "legacy" ARVs, GHSC-PSM provides continued support to countries such as Ethiopia to increase access to the optimized ARV tenofovir/lamivudine/dolutegravir (TLD), so patients can live healthy and productive lives.