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Press Release |
OTHER PRESS RELEASES |
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21 November 2006 |
DECLINES IN NUMBER OF PEOPLE LIVING
WITH HIV WITNESSED IN SOME COUNTRIES
Geneva - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria welcomes the new UNAIDS/WHO "2006 AIDS Epidemic Update," which indicates that HIV prevalence has declined significantly in a number of African countries and that increased access to antiretroviral AIDS treatment has led to millions of additional years of healthy life. However, the global epidemic continued to grow in 2006, with more than four million new infections and nearly three million deaths.
"This report clearly shows that national and global efforts have led to vital progress in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. But that progress is still too slow and too limited," said Professor Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund. "This should serve as a clarion call to the global community to take our investments and commitment to the next level".
The report also highlights the expanding burden of HIV/AIDS outside sub-Saharan Africa, which continues to be the center of the pandemic. Infection levels grew in almost every region of the world, particularly in East Asia and Eastern Europe and Central Asia where the number of new infections has increased by one-fifth over the past two years.
"We must ensure we look at the pandemic through a truly global lens," continued Professor Feachem. "We have a unique opportunity to prevent epidemics in Asia and Eastern Europe - especially the giants of China, India and Russia - from reaching catastrophic levels. But that opportunity is shrinking with each passing year".
The Global Fund is one of the world’s predominant financiers of the fight against HIV/AIDS, with more than US$ 3.7 billion committed to scaling up prevention, care, and treatment efforts in120 countries. While the majority of the Global Fund’s investments are to sub-Saharan Africa, it has committed significant resources throughout Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and other regions.
By June this year, Global Fund-financed programs had provided antiretroviral treatment to more than 550,000 people living with AIDS, tested and counseled 5.7 million people for HIV – a critical step to both preventing and treating the disease – and provided essential care and support to 560,000 orphans. (Updated treatment figures will be released by 1 December 2006).
Earlier this month, the Global Fund’s Board committed to launching a new round of grants in March 2007 to further increase the organization’s financial support for AIDS, TB and malaria 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.
The Global Fund has approved grants for more than 460 programs in 136 countries with a total commitment of US$ 6.6 billion. As of June 2006, 544,000 people had 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 had distributed 11.3 million insecticide-treated bed nets as of June 2006. 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 |
