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Announcement |
PRESS RELEASES |
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20 September 2006 |
The Global Fund Welcomes
New Initiative To Fight Aids, Tb And Malaria
Geneva - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria welcomes the launch today of the new international drug purchase facility, UNITAID, which is designed to provide sustainable and predictable financing for the fight against the three diseases. The launch was made in New York in connection with the 61st General Assembly of the United Nations by heads of state or other officials from the five nations initially participating in UNITAID: Brazil, Chile, France, Norway, and the United Kingdom.
"I commend the founders of UNITAID for this innovative approach to one of the greatest challenges facing the world today," said Professor Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund. "We are making life-long commitments to millions of people around the world through the provision of AIDS treatment and it is essential that the resources to see through those commitments are available. UNITAID is taking a significant step towards ensuring the necessary sustainability of financing."
Over the past six months, the Global Fund has worked with the five participating nations and partners such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI), to support the new facility in achieving its objectives, notably reducing prices of and increasing access to essential treatments for AIDS, TB and malaria.
One key area of partnership between UNITAID and the Global Fund will be in leveraging price reductions achieved by the new facility. With more than US$ 5.5 billion already committed to programs fighting the three diseases in 132 countries, the Global Fund has served as the primary financier of first-line antiretroviral AIDS mediations secured at lowered prices through agreements with CHAI and has driven a dramatic increase in access to effective medications for drug-resistant malaria and TB.
Similarly, in the coming years, the Global Fund expects its grants will enable affected countries to take advantage of price reductions for other essential treatments achieved by UNITAID, CHAI, and other partners. The Global Fund may also partner with UNITAID to directly scale-up essential treatments through its proven grant infrastructure.
UNITAID’s ten-member Board will meet for the first time at the beginning of October to commit resources to initial programs.
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The Global Fund is a unique global public/private partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities represents a new approach to international health financing. The Global Fund works in close collaboration with other bilateral and multilateral organizations to supplement existing efforts dealing with the three diseases.
Currently, the Global Fund has approved grants for nearly 400 programs in 132 countries with a total commitment of US$ 5.4 billion. As of June 2006, 544,000 people have begun antiretroviral (ARV) treatment through Global Fund-supported programs, a more than 40 percent increase over six months earlier. Taken together, Global Fund-supported programs to combat malaria distributed 11.3 million insecticide-treated bed nets. In addition, tuberculosis programs have detected and treated more than 1.4 million TB cases under DOTS, the internationally-approved TB control strategy.
Further information, please contact:
The Global Fund |
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| Rosie Vanek The Global Fund (Geneva, Switzerland) Phone: + 41 22 791 5951 Mobile: + 41 79 445 14 85 |
Jon Lidén |
