E-DRUG: AIDS drugs to be manufactured in Ghana
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[http://www.newsinghana.com/news/news_index.htm\]
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".
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