DAR ES SALAAM, March 13 (Reuters) - Tanzania plans a six-fold increase in the number of AIDS patients receiving life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs by 2008, a government minister said.

The east African nation of 39 million people has about 2 million people infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

"We are targeting to cover 450,000 people living with HIV/AIDS by the year 2008," said David Mwakyusa, the minister for health and social welfare.

Only 60,000 are currently on the medication compared with 2,000 patients when the government started administering free drugs in 2004.

"It is my hope that after rolling out counselling and testing services countrywide, we will be able to capture a large number to meet our target," he added in a speech obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.

Mwakyusa, who was speaking on Monday at a hospital in northern Tanzania, said the country faced a challenge with the number of tuberculosis infections, which he said stood at about 66,000, with some of them also infected with AIDS.

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