Stephen Lewis, the special representative of UN secretary general on AIDS, has called for the provision of anti-retroviral therapy for AIDS sufferers in Mozambique, according to a report reaching Luanda from Maputo on Saturday.

Speaking at a press conference in Maputo on Friday, he said that the government's target is 55,000 people on anti-retrovirals by the end of the year. However, so far there are only between 25, 000 and 28,000 people undergoing treatment, so the target requires that this figure should be doubled in six months.

He warned that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has thrust Mozambique " into a grave crisis" unless it is treated as an emergency, "there will be a terrible price to pay."

Lewis has spent the past week in Mozambique and reached the conclusion that the provision of anti-retroviral therapy for AIDS sufferers must be rapidly increased.

The UN envoy said "the government must move heaven and earth to roll out treatment in these next six months."

The key to meeting the target, he argued, was to ensure that treatment is available throughout the country, and not simply concentrated in Maputo.

By the end of the year, the Health Ministry hopes to ensure that anti-retroviral therapy is available in at least three districts in each of the ten provinces.

Lewis noted that women are disproportionately at risk from the epidemic, a fact brutally illustrated during his visit to the central city of Beira.

Source: Xinhua