India, which makes the world's cheapest AIDS drugs, has the second largest number of HIV/AIDS patients in the world with 4.58 million people afflicted with the virus, compared with five million in South Africa.

Indian companies announced last year they would slash costs for AIDS drugs to 38 cents a day for the developing world for the triple-drug regimen needed to treat the illness.

Ayanda Ntsaluba, director general of South Africa's foreign trade, said his nation was looking to India for "practical solutions" to tackle AIDS.

Ntsaluba is attending a two-day trilateral joint commission meeting of India, Brazil and South Africa in the Indian capital.

"There are current discussions between Indian companies and South African drugmakers who are even looking at sourcing pharmaceutical materials from India," he said on the meeting sidelines.

"We've encouraged private pharmaceutical companies in India and South Africa not to restrict themselves only to AIDS drugs although that's the main focus."

He said South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang was meeting her Indian counterpart, Sushma Swaraj, to follow up on business-to-business partnerships.

The meetings are aimed at cutting the prices of anti-retroviral AIDS drugs available in South Africa.

Last year, former US president Bill Clinton worked with three Indian pharmaceutical companies to slash the costs of AIDS drugs to 38 cents a day for the developing world.

New Delhi later announced its own plan to try to cut prices even lower for Indian patients to less than 20 cents a day from 38 cents in India.

India's health minister said her government was negotiating with Indian drug companies to get "the world's cheapest drugs" for Indian AIDS patients by next month.

TERRA.WIRE