State boasts of sufficient stock of methadone to last full year
Sufficient methadone to last for the entire year has been procured, the government announced in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
Minister of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Ms Ummy Mwalimu, assured that currently there is enough stock, noting that there is no patient who has been turned away due to lack of the drug.
“We were forced to order some methadone from Zanzibar but now we have procured a sufficient consignment and we have enough stock to last the whole year,” she explained. Ms Mwalimu told the ‘Daily News’ in an interview that previously the government had to rely on the drug donation, but now the medicine will be procured through the Medical Stores Department (MSD).
Lately, following the ongoing countrywide crackdown on illicit drugs, Tanzania mainland faced an acute shortage of methadone, a medication used in the rehabilitation of recovering drugs addicts. Minister Mwalimu said restriction on the medication imports had made it hard for hospitals to provide the drugs to increased number of new patients.
The government intensified the purge against narcotics, leading to increased demand of methadone from addicts who could no longer access the illicit drugs. Media had recently reported deaths of two suspected drug addicts in Mwanza, allegedly due to failure to get the illicit drugs resulting to withdrawal symptoms.
Drugs Control and Enforcement Authority (DCEA) Commissioner General Rodgers Siyanga confirmed the Mwanza deaths, adding that there were other addicts surrendering themselves at various hospitals, expecting to get the methadone.
Methadone, a synthetic opioid classified as anti-addictive, works by reducing the craving for heroin. It is usually given in liquid form, with a person’s dosage based on the perceived level of physical addiction. The drug also suppresses heroin’s infamous withdrawal symptoms, which include abdominal cramps and diarrhoea.
Tanzania has one of the first and the most successful methadone programmes in the continent that provides support services to recovering drug addicts, serving as an example to other countries seeking to cope with it.