The country’s deputy health minister Aida Libombo said on Friday Mozambique has approved the construction of a US$ 23 million pharmaceutical plant.

"We are in a process of organizing the operational process for the installation of the ARV drug factory. Everything has already been agreed upon," said Libombo.

The offer to build the plant was first raised by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his 2004 official visit to Mozambique. Lula said he wanted drugs from the plant to be available to other African nations as well.

The Southern African country along with other countries like Malawi has been hard hit by the HIV/Aids pandemic, with an estimated 1.6 million of its 20 million people infected with the HIV virus. Only a fraction of those requiring anti-retrovirals are on treatment.

A Reuters report Friday said the former Portuguese colony is working tirelessly to raise funding for the plant from international donors however minister Libombo disclose as to when the factory would start production, and it is not clear whether any major pharmaceutical companies will be involved in the operation.

According to the country’s minister Brazil says the use of generic anti-retrovirals has cut its Aids mortality rate in half and that its leading pharmaceutical manufacturer, will monitor quality and transfer technology to the plant.

The plant is set to produce a range of drugs, including generic antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) and also other drugs for diseases like Malaria.

Mozambique, one of the poorest nations on the continent, is struggling to find the money to rebuild its dilapidated health-care system, which was neglected during a 17-year civil war that ended in 1992.

An estimated 500 Mozambicans are infected with HIV each day.

Malawi is also one of the country’s which has put in place several ways to try and fight the pandemic and recently its Health Ministry announced that the number of people with the pandemic has gone down from 14 percent to 12 percent.

If Mozambique’s project of the plant materializes then the Warm Heart of Africa also stands to benefit as many of its people with the pandemic have difficulties to access the ARV’s.

In another development forty veterinary officers in Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security met in the country’s capital of Lilongwe to train on how they could contain a looming strike of Avian Influenza.

Keywords: aids health mozambique politics