ZIMBABWE this week received a round of applause for becoming the first country to declare a national HIV/Aids emergency, giving it the right to ignore drugs patents.

Geneva-based international relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres commended Zimbabwe for the Aids drugs emergency declaration, saying the move would slash the cost of anti-Aids drugs in the country, where some 2 500 people die every week from Aids.

"The procedure Zimbabwe has chosen allows swift action. This is the model other countries should follow," MSF said.

The agency said the move should slash the annual cost of treatment with a cocktail of anti-Aids drugs to just over US$400 from around the US$1,168 which international pharmaceuticals companies charge in Zimbabwe.

"Although prices are just one barrier to overcome, this measure will allow available resources to treat more than twice as many patients," MSF pharmacist co-ordinator Carmen Perez Casas told Reuters.

The Government on Monday declared a six-month emergency on Monday during which all legal restrictions on access to generic drugs, essentially cheaper versions of patented drugs, would be lifted.

The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Cde Patrick Chinamasa, said in a Government gazette that the move allowed the Government and "other authorised people" to import any generic drug used in the treatment of Aids or HIV/Aids-related conditions.

A co-ordinator of MSF's campaign for essential medicines, Ellen 't Hoen, said that she hoped other developing countries would adopt similar policies.

"I hope it (Zimbabwe) will be just the first of many," she said.

Zimbabwe is the first country to take advantage of an agreement late last year in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the world trade's watchdog, that spelt out the right of states to act when they felt public health was at risk.

Until the so-called Doha agreement, named after the Qatar capital where it was signed, WTO rules on when patents could be overruled were unclear and Third World counties were under heavy pressure from international drugs companies and rich states to respect these patent laws.