18 January 2008
Maputo — A pharmaceutical factory manufacturing the anti-retroviral drugs that prolong the lives of HIV-positive people could be installed in Mozambique, within the next 18 months, according to outgoing Brazilian ambassador Leda Camargo.
When he visited Maputo in November 2003, Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva promised that Brazil would build such a pharmaceutical plant, producing generic anti-retrovirals for use throughout the southern African region. Viability studies have been undertaken in the ensuing years, and on Friday Camargo, after an audience with President Armando Guebuza, declared that the project will indeed go ahead.
She said that currently Mozambican Health Minister Ivo Garrido is visiting the Osvaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro to finalise details on the construction of the factory. The Mozambican government set up an inter-ministerial group to deal with the matter, and Camargo was optimistic that the factory would be in production within 18 months.
"I could only leave Mozambique because the questions of the anti-retroviral factory has been decided", Camargo declared. She revealed that she had asked the Brazilian Foreign Ministry to speed matters up before she ended her three and a half year stay in Maputo.
As for the extradition of the Mozambican women convicted of drugs offences in Brazil, so that they can serve their sentences in Mozambican jails, Camargo said that the agreement signed between the two governments last July has yet to be ratified by the Brazilian parliament. Only then will the Mozambicans be repatriated.
She insisted that prisoners in Brazilian jails, whatever their nationality, "will be treated with full care and respect that all people deserve".
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