The judge said the need to widen access to first line ART and TPT therapy on a community level was a dire need
The South African Pharmacy Council has been given judicial go-ahead to introduce its Pharmacy-Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Treatment initiative, which will allow specially trained pharmacists to manage and prescribe medicine to patients with HIV and tuberculosis.
“The untapped value of pharmacists in fighting HIV was also emphasised by the efficient role pharmacies played in meeting health care needs and providing health care services during the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said. IPA claimed that the SAPC had failed to give interested parties an adequate opportunity to comment before the initiative was implemented. It further contended that PIMART unjustifiably encroached on the domain of medical practitioners and was in conflict with legislation.
Referring to the background and context, Judge van der Schyff said, in line with WHO recommendations that all people living with HIV must be provided with ART, the department of health had requested the SAPC to consider and implement interventions that would ensure that patients had increased access to medicines.
However, IPA submitted objections outside of the timeline for comments. It said this was because its members were struggling with another wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. She noted, however, that the National Drugs Policy, in line with WHO guidelines, promoted “task shifting” to advance access to medicine and that at primary level, prescribing should be competency based, not occupation based.
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Some South African Pharmacists Can Now Prescribe HIV, TB MedicineThe South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC) has been given judicial go-ahead to introduce its Pharmacy-Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Treatment (PIMART) initiative, which will allow specially trained pharmacists to manage and prescribe medicine to patients with HIV and tuberculosis. Pretoria High Court Judge Elmarie van der Schyff has dismissed an application brought by a doctors' organisation - the IPA Foundation - for the setting aside of the programme. She said the pilot project had emphasised the value of the initiative, which was in line with the World Health Organisation's vision to promote widely accessible primary health care. In August 2021, the South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC) published legislation in the Government Gazette to enable pharmacists to prescribe and dispense antiretroviral medicines (ART) for the treatment and prevention of HIV. The initiative, known as Pharmacist-Initiated Management of ART, or PIMART, aims to address the low rates of uptake of ART prophylactic treatment in South Africa and close the gap between the numbers of people diagnosed with HIV and those initiated onto treatment.
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