Emergency intervention at Mthatha depot

A rapid MSF survey showed the depot crisis’ direct impact on thousands of regular patients who couldn’t get their drugs.

Several hundred people now potentially face a lifetime of drug-resistance to first line treatment, while scores of unnecessary deaths potentially resulted from the acute break in service delivery. The erratic drug supply also affected patients newly eligible for ART or TB treatment.

This is especially severe for HIV/TB co-infected children. As paediatric TB drugs were widely out of stock, children could not be treated for TB and consequently could not start on ARVs either.