May 24, 2004, 15:15
Mozambique is unable to launch a nation wide distribution of free life-prolonging anti-retroviral Aids drugs (ARVs) because of serious shortages of staff and equipment, Francisco Songane, the health minister, said today. About 1.5 million of Mozambique's 18 million people were estimated to be living with the disease in 2003.
Songane said in an interview that about 120 000 of those living with the disease required ARVs urgently but for many help would probably arrive too late. The government has already begun a pilot project to get the drugs to 8 000 adults.
"It is simply impossible to imagine that we can distribute ARVs countrywide. We do not have the capacity to do that. We do not have the trained manpower or the infrastructure to handle such a massive programme," he said.
"It may be easy to say we should import doctors and nurses and paramedics to do the job, but in the long-term that does not help the Mozambique people," he said.
Marie-Pierre Poirier, the head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Mozambique, separately said it was essential to include children in the project, which targeted only adults this year.
Of the 30 000 children born with HIV/Aids in Mozambique every year, three-quarters die within two years, she said.
"The challenge ahead of us will be the provision of free ARVs which can prolong the lives of children," she said in an aside at a ceremony to open a paediatric day hospital in Maputo dedicated to caring for children with Aids.
Funding for the anti-Aids campaign in Mozambique comes largely from the World Bank, the Bill Clinton Foundation, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Songane said.
He said he expected Mozambique would receive millions of additional dollars from the US linked to a new US aid package for developing countries with good governance records.
Plans to produce generic drugs
Mozambique's priority was to build hospitals specialising in HIV/Aids care and prevention, he said. But to really get to grips with the disease, Mozambique was in talks with Brazil and another country Songane did not name to build plants to produce cheap generic Aids drugs.
Brazil said last year it was eager to help Mozambique establish a factory to produce Aids medication.
Their plan would be to produce enough drugs to supply the 14 countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Songane said. Some countries in the group, such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho, face an uphill struggle against a disease that is ravaging their populations.
The government has separately given approval for a local company, Farco Mozambique Pty, to do preliminary work on setting up a generic-drug factory. The firm is proceeding with partners from China, India and Italy, the minister said.
"We have signed a memorandum of understanding with Brazil and have issued initial licenses to Farco," Songane said. - Reuters
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