Brasília - Today minister of Health, Saraiva Felipe, will be in Buenos Aires, where he and the Argentine minister of Health and Environment, Ginés González Garcia, will sign an agreement for a joint research and production project for drugs and medicines.

The two countries will work together on the use of raw material for drugs and, especially, the development of antiretrovials. Activities will be coordinated in fighting tuberculosis. Brazil and Argentina will exchange information on prices and negotiations for high-cost drugs with the objective of obtaining them at lower costs [The Brazilian AIDS program distributes 17 antiretrovial drugs, of which eight are made domestically and the remaining nine are imported].

Disease control centers in both countries (Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária (Anvisa) in Brazil and Argentina's Administração Nacional de Medicamentos, Alimentos e Tecnologia Médica) will establish closer ties. Research laboratories in both countries will do the same, resulting in greater cooperation between Brazil's Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) and the Administração Nacional de Laboratórios and Instituto de Saúde Dr. Carlos G. Malbran (ANLIS) in Argentina.

Translator: Allen Bennett