People Living with HIV (PLHIV) are raising concerns after receiving antiretroviral (ARV) medicines that had allegedly expired before they were dispensed by health facilities. Uganda Radio Network (URN) examined several of the medicine bottles presented by some of the complainants.
The labels showed that the dispensed ARV’s expired in May 2026. Barbara Kemigisa, an HIV activist and mother living with HIV, said she first discovered the problem at the end of May after members of her peer support network collected her ARV refills from Hoima Regional Referral Hospital. She said one of the bottles they brought back had already expired.
Kemigisa initially dismissed the incident as an isolated error. However, she became concerned after another member of her network, who collected her medicines on July 2, reported receiving a similar bottle. She also questioned why some of her medication had been repackaged into sachets instead of being dispensed in the original bottles, saying she could not determine whether the medicines were still within their shelf life.
Kemigisa coordinates a network of young people living with HIV, encouraging members to collect drug refills for one another to reduce transport costs and improve treatment adherence. Unlike Kemigisa, who was able to identify the expiry date on her medicine, Gorretti Nandugga only discovered that she had been taking expired medication after URN examined her bottle.
Nandugga and her husband, James Wamani, had continued taking TLD, a fixed-dose combination antiretroviral medicine used in HIV treatment, unaware that the medicine they were using had expired in May 2026. The couple, who requested that the name of their health facility be withheld, collected the medication in February and are due to return for viral load testing on July 30.
Displaying a bottle containing about 30 tablets, Nandugga said she had been taking one tablet every morning while sharing the same bottle with her husband, who takes his dose in the evening. She said she is now worried about the possible health effects of taking expired medicine for more than a month. Seeking clarification, URN contacted Dr Robert Mutumba, Programme Manager of the Ministry of Health’s STD/AIDS Control Programme.
He said the Ministry had not received reports of expired ARVs being dispensed at health facilities but promised to investigate the matter. URN also contacted Ian Nyamitoro, the Ministry’s Supply Chain Expert for antiretroviral medicines, who said available stocks of TLD currently in circulation carry expiry dates in 2027 and 2028.
While the Ministry said it was unaware of the problem, Kemigisa said the matter had already been reported to officials at Hoima Regional Referral Hospital. She expressed concern that if the Ministry remains unaware of the extent of the problem, other patients could unknowingly continue taking expired medicines.
“People who do not check their medicine bottles may continue swallowing expired drugs, putting themselves at risk. For those already struggling with treatment adherence, this is an even bigger concern,” she said. Kemigisa added that the situation comes at a time when funding cuts to HIV programmes have affected patient follow-up and community tracking initiatives that previously helped identify treatment-related challenges more quickly.
When URN spoke to her on Monday, she was visiting members of her support network to inspect their medicine bottles for possible expired stock.
Dr Mutumba urged patients to carefully check the expiry dates on their medicines before leaving health facilities. However, he noted that previous complaints about expired medicines had sometimes resulted from patients confusing manufacturing dates with expiry dates.
Nyamitoro said health facilities follow established procedures for identifying and removing expired medicines before they are dispensed to patients. Efforts to obtain a response from Hoima Regional Referral Hospital regarding the alleged dispensing of expired ARVs were unsuccessful by the time of publication-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
