Brazil offered today to share its generic AIDS drugs and technology with 10 of the world's poorest countries in an effort to close the gap in treatment between rich and poor.
Brazil has pioneered the use of copycat antiretroviral drugs - to the ire of the pharmaceutical industry - in a highly successful programme for fighting HIV, the virus that causes the deadly disease.
Mr Paulo Teixeira, director of the national AIDS programme, said the country now had a duty to share its know-how with other countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean ravaged by the virus.
"Brazil feels responsible for sharing its experiences with other developing countries, especially when it is related to access to antiretroviral drugs," he told reporters at the world AIDS conference.
The Brazilian government will provide $1 million of initial funding for the scheme which will pay for the transfer of technology, training and the donation of drugs manufactured by Brazilian government laboratories.
Teixeira said he was also in discussions with other international organisations, including the Ford Foundation, which has shown interest in participating in one particular project in Africa.
Developing countries are being invited to submit proposals for 10 pilot projects, each of which will treat 100 patients initially, under the scheme launched at the AIDS meeting in Barcelona.
"The quantity is not significant if you consider the number of HIV people in developing countries. But we know that to start with treatment we have to prepare professionals and institutions, which means small projects," he said.
Modern drug cocktails have turned HIV/AIDS into a manageable condition for many in the West, but they remain out of reach for the vast majority in developing countries, where more than 90 percent of the 40 million infected worldwide live.
A mere 230,000 people in poor countries had access to antiretrovirals at the end of 2001 - nearly half of them in Brazil, where the government has ignored complaints about patents from drugmakers to promote use of generics.
Mr Teixeira said he believed there was scope for more cooperation between developing countries in fighting AIDS, following last November's decision at a World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Doha to allow states to produce cheap generic drugs to combat a "national emergency".