HIV testing kits shortage
Innocent Selatlhwa | Thursday November 5, 2015 18:00
The assistant minister of Health, Dr Alfred Madigele has confirmed the shortage, but insists they are slowly arresting the situation.
Suppliers in the Non Government Organisations and the Public Health facility alleged that provision of below standard testing kits is causing the shortage. The kits had to be taken back, and emergency consignment ordered to relieve the situation.
Mmegi has leant that in recent weeks, service providers have not been able to assist people who want to know their status, as there were no test kits. “Of late we have been having a lot of people coming to us because they could not get help elsewhere, but we have run out as well,” a source at Botswana Family Welfare Association said.
Tebelopele Counselling and Testing Centre operations manager Rapelang Monnawatlala confirmed the shortage to Mmegi.
“The shortage has been dealt with, the testing kits are now available. As Tebelopele we were not as badly affected as other facilities as we also depend on donor funding to buy the kits, the only challenge we had was going out to test people in our mobile offices, he said. Monnawatlala said they would be resuming the outreach programme soon.
Madigele admitted that there has been a supply problem, but insisted it has since been resolved.
“We had a shortage of testing kits which was solved two weeks ago after we received a consignment with 20,000 kits,” he said.
He said they had ordered a large number of test kits on time, which on arrival failed regulatory quality forcing the Ministry to make an emergency order of the 20,000 kits. He said they believe that the 20,000 are enough for now as they await the normal order, which is usually 50,000 or 100,000 kits at a go.