
Unless a new round of funding is introduced, rejected applications of poor nations for support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will risk crucial treatment for millions of people afflicted by these diseases.
Some 44 percent of HIV proposals submitted for the fund’s 10th round of funding were successful, while a number of southern African nations had their HIV proposals rejected. Proposals on combating tuberculosis from “several high burden countries” in Africa and Asia were also rejected.
>> Global Fund Grants Short for AIDS, TB Initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa
“Several low-income countries highly affected by HIV risk being entirely or partly disqualified from the current funding round by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria,” The Herald quoted an MSF report as saying.
“Today’s funding situation is nothing short of a crisis. If donors rely on the Global Fund to act as the last standing domino piece in the fight against HIV, they need to provide it with the necessary resources to respond according to needs,” said Jerome Oberreit, MSF’s operational director.
He added: “But in the absence of firm political commitments, the Global Fund will be forced to ration its funding and in turn, Aids prevention and treatment. The promise by world leaders to put more patients on treatment will then be an empty one.”