AIDS drugs to be manufactured in Ghana

Anti Retro Viral drugs (ARV) will soon be manufactured in Ghana for HIV/AIDS patients at an affordable price, Dr Richard Anane, Minister of Health announced in Accra.

He said the ministry is negotiating with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand for the project to take off.

Dr Anane said at the launch of the "Journey of Hope", an innovative package of tools developed to assist organisations and individuals to more effectively adopt participatory approaches in communicating messages of prevention and management of the disease.

The development of the tool is part of the on-going HIV/AIDS awareness education by the Ghana AIDS Commission, Ghana Social Marketing

Dr Anane said steps are also being taken to ensure that the health care system is adequately prepared to manage the administration of the ARV drugs when they come onto the market.

The prevention of mother-to-child transmission, which seeks to reduce infections from infected mothers, is also being piloted and it is expected to be scaled up to cover the whole country by the end of 2002.

The ministry has already ordered Nevirapine, the drug, which reduces mother to child transmission during labour and is expected to arrive in the country by October this year.

Over 36 million people worldwide are currently living with HIV and one third of this figure is between the aged 10 and 24 years.

About 15,000 people are being infected every day worldwide. In Ghana, a cumulative figure of 43,587 have been reported officially as at December last year. More than 90,000 people according to the Ministry of Health are said to have died from the disease.

Dr Anane said though there is still no cure for the disease, false claims of cure have impacted negatively on the desired behavioural change. He called on all to convert the high levels of awareness to the desired behavioural change and widen the local resources to augment external resources.

Mr. Emmanuel Fiagbey of the John Hopkins University said the "Journey of Hope" aims at enhancing the impact made by various organisations and individuals in the realisation of an HIV/AIDS free society.

He said the tool uses the analogy of floodwaters for rising tide of the HIV epidemic. It also uses the crocodile, boats and bridges and future islands as the main features of the journey of hope.

Dr Frank Young, Director of the USAID, said the United States has chosen Ghana as the first country in Africa to assist in combating the AIDS menace with a commitment of four million dollars.

The US would also support the activities of the "Stop AIDS Love Life" campaign. Professor Fred Sai, Presidential Adviser on Health and Population, presided and said the issue of stigma and discrimination is still quite prevalent and called on all to end it. "Let us put our shoulders to the wheel to reverse the trend of the spread of this disease".