PHA-Exch> GLOBAL FUND TO FIGHT MAJOR DISEASES APPROVES $1.1 BILLION OF NEW GRANTS

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Vern Weitzel <vern at coombs.anu.edu.au>
crossposted from: "[health-vn discussion group]" health-vn at cairo.anu.edu.au

The United Nations-backed <" http://www.theglobalfund.org/en">Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today approved $1.1 billion of new
grants
to be handed out over the next two years and agreed to allocate another $130
million to five projects it had already started supporting.

This is the first time since the Fund was established in 2002 that it has
passed
$1 billion mark in approving new grants, the Executive Director, Michel
Kazatchkine, said after a meeting of the Fund's Board in Kunming, China.

"We all know there is a tremendous need for investments in health," said Dr.
Kazatchkine. "These new grants show that need is increasingly turned into
high-quality demand for resources. This is a trend we must develop further."

Projects devoted to tackling AIDS account for 48 per cent of approved
proposals
this year, while malaria projects comprise 42 per cent and tuberculosis
projects
10 per cent.

Fund officials said they were impressed by the scope and quality of much of
the
proposals submitted, particularly in the area of combating malaria. Almost
half
of grant applications were approved this year, up from an average of 40 per
cent
in the previous six rounds of grants.

Rajat Gupta, the Chair of the Fund's Board, said it was looking forward to
scaling up the fight against the three diseases. Nearly a fifth of the
approved
funding is being contributing to the large-scale strengthening of national
health-care systems, such as by upgrading infrastructure and buying new
equipment, he noted.

For the first time, a project focused on the occupied Palestinian territory
of
West Bank and the Gaza Strip – a HIV prevention programme – has received
money
from the Fund.

In total, 73 new grants were approved and five others that had reached the
end
of their five-year life were renewed. More than 80 per cent of overall
funding
went to projects based in low-income countries, with the majority in Africa.

Since its founding the Fund has now awarded over $10 billion to projects in
136
countries as it battles the three diseases of AIDS, malaria and
tuberculosis,
which collectively claim more than 6 million lives every year.

Programmes backed by the Fund are estimated to have averted the deaths of 2
million people by providing AIDS for 1.1 million people, tuberculosis
treatment
for 2.8 million people and distributing some 30 million insecticide-treated
bed
nets to prevent malaria.
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