E-drug: Global Fund overwhelmed by requests
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Global Fund overwhelmed by requests
BMJ 2002;324:807 (6 April 2002)
Fiona Fleck, Geneva
The Global Fund, hailed as a major step in the fight against AIDS,
tuberculosis, and malaria when it was launched last year, has been
overwhelmed with applications from developing countries.
A key project of United Nations' secretary general Kofi Annan, the
fund has received pledges from developed countries and private
donors to the value of $1.92bn (�1.35bn; 2.20bn), of which
$700-800m will be disbursed this year and the rest in 2003.
But developing countries are asking for $1.15bn, much more than is
available for 2002.
Melanie Zipperer, a spokeswoman for the fund, said it was unlikely
that all applications would be successful and unlikely that, despite
the overwhelming demand, the fund would increase global spending
by 50% this year.
"We have to raise more money, that's for sure. The fight against
AIDS alone requires between $7bn and $10bn globally. The fund
was never envisaged as the sole source, but as an additional
mechanism," she said.
A technical panel is meeting in Geneva, where the fund is based, to
consider the flood of applications most of which, totalling $641m,
came from 36 countries in Africa. All the applications are for the
prevention of infections and the treatment, care, and support of
people who are infected and others who are directly affected. The
final decisions on which proposals get funding will be taken at a
board meeting in New York on 22-24 April.
According to the organisation, 40 million people are infected with
HIV. In seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa over 20% of all
adults are infected with the virus.
Most applications were for existing programmes to fight HIV/AIDS.
Many of these focused on prevention: information campaigns,
voluntary counselling and testing, and prevention of mother to child
transmission. Some proposals aimed to strengthen treatment and
community health care. Ms Zipperer said there were also some
requests for condoms and a few for drugs.
Proposals for fighting malaria included effective distribution of bed
nets, funding for treatment and better laboratory research facilities.
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