PHA-Exchange> $ 623 in Disease Fight, Short of Fund's Target

[Claudio]

$ 623 IN DISEASE FIGHT, SHORT OF FUND'S TARGET


Laurie Garrett, http://www.aegis.org/news/newsday/2003/ND031002.html

 



The board of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis voted yesterday to send grants of $623 million to poor countries, a $246-million decrease from grants made earlier this year.

 

The vote came amid controversy about the U.S. commitment to fighting AIDS.

 

The Global Fund had set a target of $3 billion a year, and world leaders, including President George W. Bush and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, have declared tackling these diseases a top priority. About 16,500 people die each day from the diseases, according to the World Health Organization.

 

This week the board of the Global Fund, chaired by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, is meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to review grant applications, the third round since the fund's inception just over two years ago. In a teleconference yesterday, Thompson expressed pride in the funding and the role of the United States. Since its beginning, the Fund has "already given out $2.1 billion in 125 countries," he said. "Every time I look at these numbers, I become more impressed with how far we have come in two years."

 

In particular, he said, "I am very proud of my own country," which has contributed about "37 percent of all the Global Fund money."

 

But Richard Feacham, the fund's executive director, said in the briefing that the funding decision "falls well short of targets. In particular, well short of the target of 3 million people on treatment [for HIV] by 2005."

 

Sharonann Lynch of the Philadelphia-based Health Gap, a nonprofit group that works on behalf of access to medical care, said in an interview that this week's round adds only 176,000 AIDS patients to the treatment rolls.

 

"At this rate we will have 240,000 people on treatment by 2005, or 8 percent of the [United Nations] target," Lynch said. "... It's all slowing down because the donors aren't giving."

 

Lynch, Feacham and Thompson said that support from wealthy nations had declined, and singled out Germany, Australia, Japan and the European Community for what Thompson labeled "stinginess."

 

Lynch and other activists said the Bush administration's separate program of AIDS funding to 14 selected nations competes with the Global Fund.

 

Thompson said Congress had voted to limit U.S. commitment to the Global Fund to 30 percent of total donations, so the Bush administration cannot give more to the Geneva-based organization unless other nations increase support.


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