Maputo  - While Mozambique has made some advances in providing life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to HIV/AIDS patients the World Bank said Wednesday the southern African country lagged in its response to the pandemic.

"Mozambique's response to HIV/AIDS was weak or deficient throughout the past year," Susan Hume, country programme Manager told a meeting in the capital Maputo to review the state's implementation of projects financed by the Bank.

The World Bank ranked "Mozambique's response to the scourge between orange and red, the lowest levels during the past 12 months," she said, referring to the period from September 2007 to September 2008.

The challenge for the impoverished former Portugese colony over the next couple of years was to develop capacity at the local level to implement major projects, including the HIV/AIDS response plan.

The World Bank is financing 18 development projects worth over 800 million dollars in Mozambique, a country of 21 million people.

HIV prevalence was traditionally lower in Mozambique than most other sub-Saharan African countries but the pandemic has made made sharp inroads in recent years. Around 16 per cent of the adult population are now estimated to be infected. (dpa)