Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva yesterday visited what is set to become Africa's first public factory for anti-HIV drugs, closing his last official visit to Africa with a focus on the fight against Aids.

Lula, who hands over the reins to protege Dilma Rousseff on January 1, called the new anti-retroviral (ARV) drug factory in Mozambique a "revolution" for Africa's efforts to control the disease.

"The fact that we are building the African continent's first factory to produce anti-Aids drugs can be seen as a revolution," Lula said at the plant on the outskirts of the capital Maputo, a stop en route to this week's G20 summit in Seoul.

The $25-million factory is being built with the help of $21- million in aid from Brazil and is expected to begin packaging Brazilian-made pills by the end of 2011, producing its own pills by the end of 2012.

Lula, who proposed the idea on a state visit to Mozambique during his first year in office in 2003, toured the site of the new facility and inspected its first piece of equipment, a packaging machine donated by Brazil.

Mozambique has more than 2.5million people living with HIV but just 210000 take ARVs, according to the Mozambican health ministry. The country depends on foreign aid to finance 80% of its HIV medication.

The factory aims to help Mozambique increase the availability and affordability of ARVs, following in Brazil's footsteps in the fight against Aids.

Brazil offers free ARV treatment to every HIV-positive citizen, a programme that sparked controversy when it was announced in 1996 because of concerns about drug resistance and violation of pharmaceutical copyrights.