Kids eat ARVs dumped by patients

Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that are randomly discarded are becoming a regular occurrence in the informal settlements in Windhoek Namibia and are a cause for concern, because small children pick the pills up and chew them.

At an informal settlement resident at Okahandja Park, where starving HIV-positive patients often discard ARVs. In a recent incident community activist Anna Mooya was called to witness yet another batch of discarded ARVs drugs in the riverbed near Okahandja Park informal settlement.

The New Era reported that the area has no toilets or municipal garbage bins. Residents use the riverbed – which doubles up as a dumpsite – to relieve themselves and this is how some residents recently came across the partially burned-out drugs in the veld.
Mooya said she previously reported such cases to fieldworkers of the Total Control of the Epidemic (TCE) programme and handed the drugs to them.

"Children, who go relieve themselves or play in the riverbed, find and eat these tablets, because some are scattered on the ground. It is dangerous. Some children think it is sweets, while other just eat these tablets out of naughtiness," said a concerned Mooya.

In the latest incident the owners of the ARVs removed their names from the two containers before throwing them away. Mooya said this is the third time this year she has been called to collect discarded ARV tablets. She explained that some people throw rubbish over the drugs and burn the tablets, but the pills tend only to break into smaller pieces.

Mooya believes people on treatment are throwing away their drugs, because they do not have enough food to eat. "Some complain of hunger, that their faces swell up [when they take the medication], they feel dizzy and sometimes get stressed out. They do face a lot of challenges," Mooya said.

She said some people living with HIV, who get jobs such as domestic work, are soon relieved of their jobs by their employers because of the number of days they stay away from work.

"They are absent from work to get their medication. If their CD4 count level is low they need to visit the clinic regularly for monitoring purposes and employers complain," Mooya explained.

She said in another instance she had organised work for a resident living with HIV, but the person was soon dismissed after they had asked their employer to read for them what was written on a bottle of pills.

"What is needed is a meeting or workshop with people on treatment. Some of these people are unemployed, so they should consider starting gardening projects to feed themselves."

Efforts to get official comment on how this trend affects government efforts and how much government spends on purchasing ARV drugs annually proved futile, as health ministry spokesperson Esther Paulus did not answer her phone or reply to text messages sent to her mobile phone.