Harare Poly discovers key HIV drug

Bulawayo Bureau
Harare Polytechnic has come up with a key ingredient used in the production of the Nevirapine drug. Nevirapine is a drug used for prevention of mother to child HIV transmission and is also used as a combination drug for HIV prevention. In Zimbabwe, Nevirapine’s active ingredient is being imported to produce the Nevirapine tablet. Mr Damascus Masawi, a senior lecturer in the Bachelor of Technology programme at Harare Polytechnic, said the department conducted laboratory tests using certified reference materials and the drug complied with the United States pharmaceutical standards to synthesise the drug.

“We are now synthesising the drug through reverse engineering process. The project is still at pilot scale. We have come up with the Nevirapine active ingredient which the country can use to produce the tablet,” he said.

The chairperson of the B-Tech department, Mr Solomon Manyere, said the move by Harare Polytechnic was in line with President Mugabe’s call on all stakeholders to become self-sufficient and move away from relying on imports.

“This move is going to help our country in the sense that if we grow to a large scale as the producers, we will be able to help the country not to rely on importing the Nevirapine active. We want to reach a stage where we produce the drug on our own” he said.