“Brazil is keen to take part in the international effort to expand access to medicines and to produce its own drugs, and will start by becoming the world supplier of medicines to treat Chagas disease,” Health Minister Alexandre Padilha announced “at the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, which opened Tuesday October 19 in Rio de Janeiro,” Inter Press Service reports. “Production of benznidazole, the drug in question, will reach 3.4 million tablets by the end of this year,” the news service writes.

The South American country “‘will take on the commitment of guaranteeing worldwide production of medicines for Chagas disease,’ … the health minister said,” IPS notes, adding, “Brazil already manufactures 1.2 million tablets a year of the medicine, according to estimates by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).” According to IPS, “In 2008, Brazil became the world’s only producer of the medicine, when the state LAFEPE laboratory in the northeastern state of Pernambuco purchased stocks of ingredients from Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, which ceased to manufacture it” (10/20).