Rio De Janeiro (ANTARA News/Xinhua-OANA) - Next week Brazil will start churning out Tenofovir, a drug to treat AIDS and all types of hepatitis, instead of having to import it, the Health Ministry said Wednesday.

The Ezequiel Dias Foundation`s (Funed) lab in the southeast state of Minas Gerais will be the drug`s first Brazilian producer, and the homemade drug will be available in March with a total output of 36 million pills by year-end, it said.

The Brazilian-made Tenofovir will be distributed freely to 64,000 AIDS patients and 1,500 hepatitis patients while import savings resulting from the homemade production will total 247 million U.S. dollars in five years, it said.

"Besides making the drug available to those AIDS and hepatitis patients, the long-term availability of the drug is to reduce foreign dependence," said Dirceu Greco, who heads the ministry`s AIDS and viral hepatitis department.(*)

Editor: Jafar M Sidik
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