OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) - Two African countries are negotiating with Thailand's government to learn how to produce cheap, generic anti-HIV drugs on the continent hardest-hit by AIDS, the World Health Organization says.

Zimbabwe and Ghana are finalizing deals under which Thailand would provide the technical expertise needed to set up factories to produce the drugs in Africa, WHO representative Mariane Ngoulla said late Wednesday.   Ngoulla, who heads a research unit on traditional medicine at WHO's Africa headquarters in Zimbabwe, was speaking at the 12th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa, which ended in Ouagadougou on Thursday.

Thailand's state-run Government Pharmaceutical Organization announced in October it would start manufacturing locally produced HIV drugs by year's end that would cut the cost of treatment in half.

Ngoulla said generic drugs produced in African factories could cost patients under dlrs 350 per year - about three times less than current cut-rate prices available in some countries. There was no word on when factories would be set up or when the drugs might be available.

Anti-retroviral drug combinations have changed HIV from a virtual death sentence to a manageable condition in Western countries. But their high cost prohibits most infected Africans from using them.

This year, 10 African countries signed agreements with major pharmaceutical companies to receive the drugs at a fraction of their cost in Western nations, WHO says. But even at prices reduced by as much as 90 percent, few Africans can afford them.

About 28 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to UNAIDS. But only about 30,000 have access to anti-retroviral drugs.

"Patient access to treatments means making drugs available at prices people can afford," Ngoulla said.

WHO wants to see all countries in Africa gain access to low-cost HIV drugs produced on the continent, she said.

"We have the facilities, and they are underutilized. Now the question is how to produce cheaper drugs with equal quality and efficiency," Ngoulla said.

Nearly 5,000 people - including scientists, politicians, aid workers and traditional healers from 61 countries - attended the five-day conference. Also present were representatives from some of the world's major pharmaceutical companies.

As the conference ended Friday, participants called on donor countries to step up vital contributions of money needed to help researchers and health workers fight the disease.

In April, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a global fund of dlrs 7-10 billion annually to combat AIDS around the world. But so far only dlrs 1.6 billion have been collected.

AIDS claims the lives of about 2.3 million Africans every year, UNAIDS says.

The conference, which takes place every other year, will be held next in Nairobi, Kenya in 2003.