The main HIV antiretroviral treatment clinic, located in the Santo Tomás Hospital, will receive a new HIV treatment that is already available in the warehouses of the Ministry of Health (Minsa) next June.
According to the national head of the Minsa HIV program, Carlos Chávez, 1,100 bottles have been purchased (which would cover the last months of the year) and they are already analyzing to make purchases next year, which includes the rest of the country. .
He explained that this new second-line treatment is a medicine that the Ministry of Health acquired starting this year, 2023.
“In Panama, we already have a first line of treatment that is Acriptega (a mixture of three drugs in a single pill is the best and recommended by the WHO); currently for the second line, it comes in drugs that come separately and they had to take more tablets a day”, said the doctor.
He added, “This new drug is Darunavir, it’s in a class of drug known as an inhibitor, and it’s a booster that prevents you from taking multiple tablets of multiple drugs, sometimes up to 4 tablets of different drugs, per day.”
Chávez reported that a first purchase was made that will benefit 85 patients nationwide, from a specific scheme for patients undergoing HIV treatment and stated that “we do not have many patients with this type of scheme, they are the least; but it will directly benefit patients who no longer have options to go to another scheme”.
“Sometimes, if there is resistance, the drug scheme changes; until the patient has no other options,” she said.
But with this group of patients, they will take this medication (Darunavir) that will give them other options than pills (which are more tolerable and with fewer adverse effects) and additionally, they will have better options for their respective treatment.
