Global perspective Human stories

Fund to fight AIDS, TB, malaria approves $382 million in grants

Fund to fight AIDS, TB, malaria approves $382 million in grants

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The United Nations-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today approved its fifth round of grant proposals since it was established in 2002, committing $382 million over two years to 26 grants in 20 countries.

The Board of the Global Fund, set up on Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s initiative, approves proposals for five years but initially only commits funds for the first two years.

The grants approved at this week’s Board meeting in Geneva represent just over half of all Round 5 grants recommended for approval. Taken together, the total two-year commitment for 63 grants slated for funding in Round 5 is $726 million, while their five-year value is $1.8 billion.

Once all recommended grants have been approved, Round 5 brings the total Global Fund commitments $4.6 billion for more than 370 grants in 131 countries.

The Round 5 grants will through their lifetime support AIDS treatment for an additional 229,000 people, provide voluntary counselling and testing for an additional 10 million people, provide 17 million more long-lasting bed nets and 119 million more new artemisinin-based combination therapy treatments against malaria, and an additional 1.5 million treatments against tuberculosis.

Overall the Fund aims to put 1.85 million people affected by HIV/AIDS on anti-retroviral treatment, reach 62 million people with voluntary counselling and testing services for HIV prevention, treat 5 million tuberculosis cases, and provide 108 million bed nets and 145 million artemisinin-based treatments against malaria.

Three quarters of the Round 5 funding will go to low-income countries, with Africa receiving 66 per cent, Asia and the Western Pacific 17 per cent, Latin America and the Caribbean nine per cent, Eastern Europe four per cent and the Middle East four per cent.

Since its creation, the Global Fund has become the world’s premier financing mechanism for programs against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, providing a quarter of international financing against AIDS worldwide, more than half of all international malaria financing and more than two thirds of international financing for TB programs. Together, the three diseases kill more than 6 million people each year.