Global Fund provides over 1 mln HIV sufferers with antiretrovirals

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said Tuesday it had doubled to more than one million the number of HIV victims in poor countries who receive life-saving antiretroviral treatments in a year.

Similar progress was achieved for tuberculosis and malaria, the Fund announced in a telephone news conference.

Some 2.8 million people were treated for TB via the Fund's programmes by May 1, 2007, up from 1.4 million a year earlier, and 30 million people received malaria-resistant nets, it said.

"We are clearly exceeding our targets," the Fund's executive director Michel Kazatchkine told journalists.
He said the Fund's activities had helped save around 1.8 million lives since it began its work in 2002.

The Fund is currently providing approximately two-thirds of support against malaria and TB worldwide, and around a quarter of support for HIV/AIDS, he added.

Kazatchkine urged the leaders of the G8 group of industrialised nations, who will be meeting in the German resort of Heiligendamm duing June 6-8, to live up to their commitments to help fight the diseases.

"I hope they (the G8 leaders) can be inspired by the Global Fund's success to pursue health targets they have set, including cutting malaria and tuberculosis rates in half," he said.

The Global Fund was created in January 2002 by the then UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan to channel new money into local projects in poor nations.

Joia Mukherjee, medical director for the group 'Partners in Health', which received one of the first Global Fund grants, said the Fund was vital not just in tackling the three diseases, but also in supporting public health infrastructure in developing countries.

In countries such as Rwanda, Haiti and Lesotho, the Global Fund's programmes have "huge amounts of collateral benefits for the health system in general," she told journalists.

Mukherjee called on the G8 leaders to deepen their commitment to fighting AIDS, TB and malaria, and stressed the importance of taking a long-term perspective on funding commitments, for periods of 10 to 20 years.