KARACHI, Dec 5: The anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs - needed to prolong the lives of people living with Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) - would be made available to 400 Pakistanis next year, said the federal health minister on Sunday afternoon.

Talking to a couple of journalists in the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, M. Nasir Khan said his ministry was in the process of procuring the ARV drugs. Some healthcare centres had already been identified in all the provinces at which the people living with HIV would be administered these drugs.

The minister said a draft law - incorporating the changes recommended by a committee of the country's premier legislature - would be discussed on the floor of the National Assembly during its next sitting. If the draft law were approved by the National Assembly and Senate, transplantation of cadaver organs would become lawful.

In response to a question, Mr Khan said the draft legislation covered a whole gamut of related issues, ranging from transplantation of organs to their illicit trade. Therefore, the law would provide relief to the people suffering from organ failure, besides helping the authorities curb 'marketing' of organs.

He said several drafts on the subject had been prepared and vetted successively by the law and health ministries and a standing committee of the National Assembly. The World Health Organization (WHO), he said, wanted the member countries to control the sale and purchase of organs as soon as possible.

The authorities of the country needed to consolidate the existing health services, instead of expanding them, said the minister. The construction of new buildings, at a time when there was a ban on employment, only showed that some interests were primarily interested in looting and plundering the resources of the country, at the expense of the masses.

"This will have to change now. We have to run our hospitals like businesses in the sense that the managements should be aware of the financial implications of the steps they propose," remarked the minister.

He said all the hospitals and institutes controlled by his ministry would be computerized soon so that wastage and pilferage could be reduced. The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad, and the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, would be transformed into centres of excellence.

Answering a question, Mr Khan said that 'Viagra' and some other drugs like it, might soon be manufactured in the country. However, a final decision in this regard was yet to be taken, added the minister.