The National Health Security Office (NHSO) : hospitals to hand out more anti-HIV pills

NHSO : hospitals to hand out more anti-HIV pills

The National Health Security Office (NHSO) has agreed all hospitals nationwide with gold card social security contract to prescribe the anti-Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) pills to unemployed social security holders for their continuous medication.

NHSO Secretary General Medical Doctor Winai Sawasdiworn said that the NHSO is preparing to expand the prescription of the anti-Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) pills to social security holders, no matter they use their social security or health security rights.

Many HIV patients are experiencing problems of receiving continuous medication since many of them return home and becoming unemployed due to the economic crisis.

Currently, there are only 306 big hospitals nationwide with social security contracts offering anti-HIV pills while other 1,150 hospitals belonged to NHSO’s project in districts and communities do not offer such service.

Therefore, NHSO has to distribute the pills to all unemployed patients for their continuous medication and prevent drug resistance in the future.

MD Winai also said that currently there are 43,346 HIV patients holding social security who need to receive the pills. He believed that the existing budget will be able to cover further drug prescription for gold card social security holders too.

In addition, NHSO will speedily consider drug prescription for some other diseases which need continuous medication like tuberculosis to prevent drug resistance and more spreading of diseases.

National News Bureau of Thailand
10 March 2009