Jude Lugya
14 August 2008
Quality Chemicals Limited, a local drug manufacturing company will soon produce drugs that stop mother-to-child transmission of HIV/Aids during birth and breastfeeding.
The company that will help in the Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission (PMTCT) of Aids is expected to start production of the drugs by November this year.
"These drugs will allow HIV/Aids positive mothers to safely breast feed without any worry of infecting their children," George Baguma, the company's director of marketing said on Tuesday.
Over 25,000 children in Uganda get infected with HIV/Aids from their mothers either at birth or during breast feeding annually.
Of the estimated 50,000 children eligible for ARVs, only 12,000 have access to Anti retroviral therapy. Without treatment, most children die before the age of five years.
Baguma said the company will import the latest molecules that are used in the manufacture of affordable ARVs in order to make the drugs affordable to people in developing countries like Uganda.
"Patients quickly develop resistance to ARVs, that is why we have to import the latest molecules every time," he said.
He was speaking to a group of Uganda permanent secretaries who visited the plant in Luzira near Kampala on Tuesday. Baguma said that although commercial production of ARVs and anti malarial drugs begins in November, the production of batches is underway for purposes of acquiring the necessary marketing licences.
He said the National Drug Authority has licensed the plant to start production. However, they are awaiting licenses from the World Health Organisation and the United States Food and Drug Authority.
Baguma said the company will produce triple therapy combination ARVs that will enable patients swallow one tablet per day to reduce on the burden of one swallowing several tablets per day. "That burden is the leading cause of patients to abandon treatment," he said.
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