President John Mahama has announced plans to make Ghana a hub for the production of anti-retroviral drugs within the West African sub region.

He says the availability of drugs is crucial to dealing with the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country.

President Mahama disclosed that the government has set a target to increase the number of HIV patients on medication from 60 to 90 percent.

He said this when the Executive Director of the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) paid a courtesy call on him at the Flagstaff House, Friday.

“Some of the strategies we are doing is to stimulate the local production of the ARTs (Anti-retroviral therapy) and to turn Ghana into a hub for pharmaceutical production.

The bulk of the funds, he noted, are to be used to improve and increase the production of prophylactics and ARTs “so we are increasing the supply of ARTs locally but also aiming to become the hub for procurement of ARTs within the sub-region.”

“So that Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and other countries can procure some of their ARTs from here. That project is going on quite well,” President Mahama added.