While on one hand the Ministry of Health wants to provide individual and alterative drugs to those HIV patients who failed to respond to the second line of antiretroviral therapy (ART), an anti-AIDS organization on the other hand is pushing Government to contemplate over the possibility of offering third-line treatment to them in 2012.

Felix Mwanza, Country Coordinator of Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign (TALC), stated that there were evidences in Lusaka and Kitwe that second-line treatment was not working for HIV patients and such cases may be prevalent across the country.

He added that measures should be adopted to ensure that everyone on the second line treatment failed or not. "Failure to procure the third line drugs will have future complications as people could develop a very resistance HIV which could prove costly", said Mwanza.

However, Dr. Kamoto Mbewe, Ministry of Health spokesperson, expressed that the proportion of HIV patients who failed to the second-line treatment was very small and in more than 94% of the cases, it proved to be successful.

Mwanza called for availability of more HIV, tuberculosis and other vital medicines. He added that in the absence of the Global Funds to the Ministry of Health, those living with HIV would have to suffer as services that were funded by Global Funds would collapse.