RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A de­layed ship­ment of Tacrolimus—the es­sen­tial an­ti-re­jec­tion drug for or­gan trans­plant re­cip­i­ents—is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive to­day, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe con­firmed.

Dr Bo­doe said the de­liv­ery of the 1 mg and 0.5 mg dosages was post­poned by one day due to me­chan­i­cal is­sues with a car­go air­craft.

“There are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 pa­tients on the 5 mg Tacrolimus. The 5 mg is in stock at C40 and has not been out of sup­ply,” he as­sured.

The de­lay fol­lows grow­ing con­cerns from the Kid­ney Re­cip­i­ents Sup­port Group of Trinidad and To­ba­go (KRS­GOTT), which in a June 30 let­ter de­scribed the re­cur­ring drug short­age as a “na­tion­al health cri­sis”.

The group warned that in­con­sis­tent ac­cess to Tacrolimus is forc­ing trans­plant pa­tients in­to re­nal fail­ure, hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion, and or­gan re­jec­tion—some re­sort­ing to ex­pen­sive or unau­tho­rised sources for med­ica­tion.

Tacrolimus is a vi­tal im­muno­sup­pres­sant that pre­vents the body’s im­mune sys­tem from at­tack­ing trans­plant­ed or­gans, in­clud­ing kid­neys, liv­ers, and hearts. It is al­so used to treat chil­dren suf­fer­ing from chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease and nephrot­ic syn­drome.

KRS­GOTT says the short­age jeop­ar­dis­es hun­dreds of pa­tients and threat­ens to un­do years of progress in trans­plant care.

“Kid­ney trans­plan­ta­tion has giv­en hun­dreds of cit­i­zens a sec­ond chance at life. These life-sav­ing pro­ce­dures de­pend en­tire­ly on con­tin­ued ac­cess to Tacrolimus,” the group stat­ed, urg­ing im­me­di­ate gov­ern­ment ac­tion and the cre­ation of a task force to mon­i­tor trans­plant drug sup­ply.

In re­sponse, the Min­istry of Health said the de­lay is tem­po­rary and re­as­sured that stock lev­els will sta­bilise once the ship­ment ar­rives. Pa­tients are ad­vised to re­main in con­tact with their physi­cians for guid­ance, dosage ad­just­ments, or ap­proved al­ter­na­tives where nec­es­sary.

Tacrolimus sub­sti­tutes in­clude cy­closporine, sirolimus, and everolimus, as well as oth­er im­muno­sup­pres­sants like be­lat­a­cept, my­cophe­no­late mofetil, aza­thio­prine, and cor­ti­cos­teroids.

The min­istry said an up­date will be is­sued fol­low­ing the ship­ment’s ar­rival.