PHA-Exchange> Global Business Coalition teams up with Global Fund

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Global Business Coalition teams up with Global Fund
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"The partnership brings the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight 
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria together with the Global Business 
Coalition on HIV/AIDS -- which includes almost 130 international 
businesses.
 
Nine firms have already pledged to use their resources in poor 
countries where they operate, though there are no details of how 
much they will invest."
 
US Sees Quick Response to Africa's AIDS War
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By REUTERS
 
Published: December 7, 2003
 
ENTEBBE, Uganda (Reuters) - Health secretary Tommy Thompson ended 
an African tour to promote AIDS awareness at the weekend, saying 
he was optimistic that resources to fight the disease would pour 
in from big business in the next couple of years.
 
Thompson visited Botswana, Zambia, Kenya and Uganda, stopping in 
Nairobi to launch a partnership between business and a U.S.-
backed AIDS project aimed at encouraging big firms to help fund 
the battle against HIV/AIDS in the developing world. Advertise-
ment
 
"From what we have learned there is no question in my mind that 
those resources are going to come and come very fast," Thompson 
told a news conference in Entebbe, 40 kmfrom the Ugandan capital, 
late on Saturday.
 
"We expect to make tremendous progress in that direction in 12 to 
18 months... This trip has been a ten on a scale of one to ten, 
everyone has come away with a new perspective on the problem."
 
The partnership brings the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, 
Tuberculosis and Malaria together with the Global Business Coali-
tion on HIV/AIDS -- which includes almost 130 international busi-
nesses.
 
Nine firms have already pledged to use their resources in poor 
countries where they operate, though there are no details of how 
much they will invest.
 
Members of the large delegation of U.S. officials and business 
leaders touring Africa with Thompson said it was clear more drugs 
and better infrastructure were needed on a continent where an es-
timated 26.6 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS.
 
"We have learned that the countries we have visited need a mas-
sive investment in infrastructure to deliver life-saving drugs to 
the affected," Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global 
Fund, said.
 
"But even with the current situation there is a great potential 
to scale up the availability of anti-retroviral treatments to the 
affected."
 
The Global Fund was set up in 2001 as a kind of global war chest 
against the three big infectious diseases by the United Nations 
and the G8 group of rich nations.
 
AIDS, TB and malaria kill nearly six million people each year, 
mostly in poor countries.