PHA-Exch> Aid group [The Global Fund ] to spend $2.75 billion to fight diseases

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel at gmail.com>
crospostedfrom: "[health-vn discussion group]" health-vn at cairo.anu.edu.au
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/11/asia/AS-India-Global-Fund.php

Aid group to spend $2.75 billion to fight diseases

The Associated PressPublished: November 11, 2008



NEW DELHI: An international aid agency will spend $2.75 billion over the
next two years to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in 140 countries, an
official said.

The Global Fund aims to cut the number of deaths from tuberculosis and
malaria by half by 2015, Rajat Gupta, a top fund official, said in a
statement issued Monday in New Delhi after the fund's board met in the
Indian capital over the weekend.

"This is the highest amount of new financing approved by the Global Fund
ever," Gupta said, adding that 51 percent of the resources will go to
malaria programs, 38 percent for AIDS and 11 percent for tuberculosis.

Ninety percent of the approved grants were for low-income countries — 77
percent in Africa and the Middle East, he said. The rest will go to
countries in Asia, Western Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, Eastern
Europe and Central Asia.

The new grants bring the Global Fund's overall portfolio to $14.4 billion in
140 countries.

The Global Fund was started in 2001 when the Group of Eight leading
industrialized nations pledged to step up funding to fight AIDS and other
global epidemics. The Geneva-based group is primarily a fundraising and
disbursing agency that works with other organizations to supplement existing
efforts to deal with the three diseases.

The United States, Netherlands, Spain, France, Norway and the European Union
are among the major contributors to the fund.
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