Open letter: Specialist organizations call for changes in production and monitoring for HIV medication

Open letter: Specialist organizations call for changes in production and monitoring for HIV medication

In view of a multi-month supply, HIV medication, leading specialist organizations from the HIV area have written an open letter to Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach. The cross-organizational initiative consists of the German AIDS Society (DAIG), the German Arbeitsgemeinschaft Outpatient Doctors for Infectious Diseases and HIV Medicine (Dagnä), the German Working Group HIV and Hepatitis-Competent Pharmacies (DAHKA) and the German AIDSHILDER (DOH).

In the letter, the organizations require concrete changes in production and monitoring to improve the prone to the supply of HIV medication in Germany. As a trigger for the open letter, the HIV medication of the HIV medication with the active ingredients Emtricitabin/Tenofovirdisoprxil is mentioned. This drug is the only approved HIV preparation for drug prophylaxis and also plays an important role in HIV therapy. Due to the delivery bottleneck, thousands of people have temporarily lost their protection against HIV.

The delivery passport started after a failure at a provider in October last year, but was only officially found by the Federal Ministry of Health at the end of January as a lack of care. Although some deliveries of the medication have now arrived, there is still no reliable availability. In their open letter, the specialist organizations emphasize the need for reliable care with HIV medication and preventive measures to avoid uncertainty among those affected and to regain trust in the health system.

dr. Heiko Karcher, board member of the Dagnä, expressed his lack of understanding of the delayed reaction of politics to the warnings of the specialist organizations that were already carried out in November. He emphasized the need for a faster and solution -oriented action on the part of politics. Erik Tenberken, board member of the DAHKA, called for clear definitions of delivery and controls on the part of the pharmaceutical companies in order to ensure the safe care of the patients in the first place and to take the economic interests of the manufacturers into the background.

The public demand for a safer supply of HIV medication is followed carefully in Berlin because the city has a large community of people with HIV infections. The historical importance of Berlin in relation to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s makes the guarantee of adequate care with antiretroviral drugs an important task for the federal government.

In the following is a table with information about the delivery bottleneck and the demands of the specialist organizations:

| Delivery bottleneck from Emtricitabin /TenofovirdisoProxil |
| ———————————————— |
| Start of the delivery bottleneck | October 2023 |
| Determination of the lack of pension | At the end of January 2024 |
| Current availability of the drug | Not yet reliable |

| Demands of the specialist organizations |
| ———————————————— |
| Improvement of production and monitoring |
| Ensure reliable supply |
| Get trust in the health system |
| Clear definitions of delivery ability |
| Controls on the part of the pharmaceutical companies |

The Federal Government is now faced with the task of taking measures to ensure the supply of HIV medication in the long term and to restore the trust of those affected. It remains to be seen how politics will react to the demands of the specialist organizations in order to prevent possible future delivery bottlenecks and to improve the security of supply.

Source: German Aidshilfe/OTS