Gates gives $500 million to Global AIDS, TB fund
|
|
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said on Wednesday it was giving $500 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, by far its biggest grant to the fund, which says it sorely lacks cash.
The money, to be given over five years, is the largest private donation to the fund, founded nearly five years ago to serve as the primary financing vehicle for efforts to fight the HIV pandemic, tuberculosis and malaria.
The fund has always struggled to persuade rich nations to contribute.
“Even with this support, it is likely that the fund will need an additional $500 million to reach our goal of $1.1 billion to fully fund all of the grants that we expect to approve for our sixth round of funding,” said Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund.
Richard Burzynski of the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations said the fund has a predicted $2.1 billion shortfall for this year and next year alone.
So far, the fund has committed a total of $5.4 billion in grants, mostly to poor countries. It prides itself on making recipients account for the money and earlier this year withdrew some funding for Nigeria.
“The Global Fund is one of the most important health initiatives in the world today,” Gates, who founded Microsoft, said in a statement.
Gates and the fund announced the cash gift less than a week before the 16th International AIDS Conference, being held this year in Toronto. The Gates Foundation pledged $100 million to the Fund in 2001, and $50 million in 2004.
The Geneva-based fund, administered independently, was responsible for about a fifth of all international funding for programs to fight HIV in 2005.
This included HIV drugs for 544,000 people, more than 1.4 million people treated for TB and more than 11 million bed nets distributed to protect children from malaria.
“As we move from crisis management to a sustained AIDS response, we will continue to rely on the Global Fund as the best model to provide strategic and predictable funding,” said Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of the United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS.
“A fully funded Global Fund is absolutely critical to the AIDS response.”
Recipients also praised the Fund.
“The Global Fund has provided us with the support we need to drive back AIDS and other diseases, and I am happy to see that this contribution will help it continue to do so for years to come,” President Paul Kagame of Rwanda said in a statement.
“Thousands of people who would otherwise be dead are healthy and working to build a better future for their families and our country.”
Print Version
Tell-a-Friend comments powered by Disqus
