Maputo, Mozambique — Opposition legislators on Tuesday demanded that the Mozambican government import anti- retroviral drugs to prolong the lives of people living with the incurable HIV/AIDS.
They were speaking in a debate following the presentation of a report on the HIV/AIDS epidemic given by Deputy Health Minister Aida Libombo.
Libombo had not ruled out the use of anti-retrovirals, but said these should be imported from Brazil and India, which have ignored the patents of the multinational drug companies, and are producing their own, relatively cheap versions of the drugs.
However, the Renamo legislators had different views to hers.
"Brazil and India? Perish the thought! Buy them from the industrialised west !, said some members of the former rebel movement.
One of them, Amade Mussa thought there was no reason not to buy western anti-retrovirals. He suggested that if the government wanted drugs from Brazil or India, there must be "hidden financial interests" involved.
Gania Mussagy demanded, not only the import of anti- retrovirals, but also their distribution free of charge "so that the poor can live longer".
"Why has the government prohibited the import of anti- retrovirals ?", inquired Jose Palaco. He called on the private sector to import these drugs, and to distribute them "according to the laws of the market."
But a Ministry of Health document, which the Renamo benches seem not to have read, pointed out that anti-retrovirals are drugs "which require specific training in their use".
They produce a range of secondary effects, which can include fatigue, vomiting, mouth ulcers, diarrhoea, headaches, muscular pains and much else.
As a result, in Europe about 15 percent of patients abandon treatment with anti-retrovirals because they cannot stand the side effects.
The ministry insisted that doctors must have detailed knowledge of these drugs and their side effects, and the patients must be highly disciplined in taking them.
If they were not taken in the right amounts and at the right times, "we will induce resistance to the drugs, and the therapy will fail completely", it added.
Use of these drugs also implied "strong and specialist laboratory support", the Ministry document said. "This support involves very sophisticated and expensive equipment for certain examinations which the country does not currently possess".
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Then there is the cost of the drugs. Even using the Indian or Brazilian versions, to treat 350,000 AIDS patients would cost 15 million US dollars a year.
On top of that, a further 3.5 million dollars should be spent on treating the opportunist infections that many of these patients will still suffer.
These figures do not include the laboratory and other indirect costs - at 200 dollars per patient per year. These would total a staggering 70 million dollars.
The cost of treating 130,000 infected pregnant women to prevent them passing on HIV to their babies, and of dealing with their opportunist infections is put at 16 million US dollars a year, minus the indirect costs.
The Mozambican government does not have the money for this. The total Health Ministry budget for drugs of all types is just 30 million US dollars a year.
