“Mozambique has been advancing in this direction, since the budget has been increased in line with the country’s capacity”, claimed Manguele. As an example, he cited the fact that the operations of Mozambique’s National AIDS Council (CNCS) now “depends fundamentally on the state budget”, rather than on foreign donors.
But the harsh reality is that Mozambique is still a very long way from meeting the Abuja Declaration target. According to Finance Minister Manuel Chang, introducing the 2013 budget in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, last December, only 10.3 per cent of the budget is allocated to health.
Manguele was speaking on Sunday in Abuja, where he is part of the Mozambican delegation, led by Prime Minister Alberto Vaquina, attending the AU Special Summit on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis , malaria and other infectious diseases.
The summit is being held 12 years after African heads of state met in the Nigerian capital and signed a plan of action against these diseases.
In addition to the 15 per cent target, the Abuja Declaration also committed African governments to suspend customs duties and other economic barriers to all products, particularly medicines, involved in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
Manguele also declared that Mozambique has taken an important step in the fight against AIDS by introducing a new therapeutic regime which, it is hoped, will reduce the number of people who start anti-retroviral treatment, but later drop out.
Under the new therapeutic regime, patients take a single pill, rather than several, per day. “The regime we have now introduced will make life easier for patients. This is a great advance”, said Manguele.
He added that the new regime puts heavy demands on the government “because it requires more resources for the purchase of medicines”. But he believed that, as the number of people under treatment increases, so the costs will fall.
“When some years ago, we introduced anti-retroviral treatment, it seemed impossible that by today it would be benefitting ordinary citizens”, said Manguele. “It was almost prohibitive for the majority of Mozambicans, but today we have an ever large number of citizens being treated”.
Post published in: Africa News