News
People living with HIV in at least 16 regions across Russia have been denied the viral load and immune status tests necessary for ensuring that antiretroviral therapy is effective. Since the beginning of the year, the civil society movement «Patient Control» has received at least 40 such complaints from regions including Samara, Tyumen, Kaluga, Orenburg, Rostov, Amur, Leningrad region, as well as the republics of Dagestan, Udmurtia, and Bashkortostan, Vedomosti reports.
A shortage of viral load test systems was confirmed to the newspaper by a source at the AIDS Center in Perm Krai. The complaints submitted to Pereboi.ru — a platform that aggregates reports of supply disruptions of HIV treatment medications — suggest that the problem is urgent.
The lack of test systems may be linked to reduced funding. “Since 2022, the federal subsidy allocated to regions for diagnostics has decreased by 35%, while the number of people registered for regular HIV care has increased by 12.7%,” said Alexey Kovelenov, Chief Physician of the Center for the Prevention and Control of AIDS and Infectious Diseases in the Leningrad Region. According to Kovelenov, the funding shortfall has led to a scarcity of test systems and reduced the frequency of testing.
Tests for viral load and immune status are essential for monitoring the effectiveness of the medications prescribed to a patient. According to clinical guidelines, such examinations should be conducted one month after the initiation of antiretroviral therapy, then again at three months, and subsequently every six months.