UN-backed fund allocates more than $400 million to help combat AIDS, TB and malaria

Close to half a billion dollars will be distributed around the world as part of United Nations-backed efforts to respond to the global threat posed by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria announced today that it approved 45 new two-year grants – totalling $419.2 million – to fund essential prevention, treatment and care services to those affected by the three killer diseases.

“We are proud that this investment can assure continuation of life-saving services to countless patients,” the Global Fund’s General Manager, Gabriel Jaramillo, said in a news release.

Another 11 proposals, worth a total of $91.2 million, were sent back for revision and are subject to further independent technical review at a later date before they can be approved, the Global Fund added.

The proposals, approved on 24 August, were part of the Transitional Funding Mechanism established by the Fund’s Board in order to ensure that essential programs for patients suffering with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria are not interrupted during shortfalls in financial resources. The approved funding will bridge the financing of essential interventions until the next round of grant applications.

A public-private partnership and international financing institution, the Global Fund was created in 2002 to scale up resources to fight three of the world’s most devastating diseases, and to direct those resources to areas of greatest need.

To date, it has approved funding of $22.9 billion for more than 1,000 programs in 151 countries, and helped programmes provide AIDS treatment for 3.6 million people, anti-tuberculosis treatment for 9.3 million people and 270 million insecticide-treated nets for the prevention of malaria.