Starting this year, Mozambique will produce vaccines and injectables on a large scale to deal with diseases such as tuberculosis and polio, and also reduce expenditure on importing medicines.

As part of this, two more production lines are being installed at Indústria Farmacêutica (INFARMA), in Matola, Maputo province.

"Our policy as a government is to stimulate local industry in order to reduce foreign dependence, especially in the area of medicines. With this visit, I've come to the conclusion that we have the conditions to solve the people's main health problems, because I found production lines that respond to the profile of Mozambique's diseases," said the Minister of Health, Ussene Isse, quoted by the Mozambican Press. News.

In the meantime, he said there was a need for the authorities to take steps to control the warehouses and the entire distribution chain so that there would be no shortage of medicines even at the peripheral level.

For his part, the Chairman of INFARMA's Board of Directors, Evaristo Madime, pointed out that the country is close to finalizing the implementation of the serum production unit and will stop importing serums this year.

"The serum factory will have the capacity to produce 16 million units, when the country consumes half. That way, there will be room to export to neighboring countries," he explained.

He added that FNM and INFARMA produce more than a hundred types of medicines to treat the country's main illnesses, supplying more than a billion pharmaceutical units to the SNS every year.

FNM is certified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of four pre-qualified factories in sub-Saharan Africa, enabling the institution to export medicines. (Source: News)