International Fund hopes to lift $18 billion to battle HIV, tuberculosis and malaria

It is the biggest “restocking” goal the organization has ever set and comes amid mounting economic pressures.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will call on donors, this Wednesday, 21, in New Yorkwith the expectation of raising at least US$ 18 million in an event organized by the American president, Joe Biden.

It is the biggest “restocking” goal that the organization has ever set, and it comes amid growing economic pressures, both in donor countries and those benefiting from these resources, after the covid-19 pandemic and amid the food and energy crises arising from the crisis. Ukraine conflict.

the spokeswoman Françoise Vanni I told AFP be excited about recent pledges: €1.3 billion from Germany, $6 billion from the United States and $1.08 billion from Japan. Added together, these amounts would take the agency to “about half” of its goal.

“There is a lot at stake, and the $18 billion goal is largely based on getting back on the path to ending AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by 2030, making up for lost ground during the Covid pandemic and saving at least 20 million lives in the next three years,” said Vanni.

The Global Fund was created in 2002 and brings together governments, multilateral agencies, civil society groups and the private sector to fight these three deadly diseases, often with new funding cycles every three years.

Last year, the Global Fund warned that the pandemic was having a “devastating” impact on its work, triggering a setback in results for the first time in its history.

In 2020, for example, the number of deaths from tuberculosis reached 1.5 million, an increase for the first time in a decade, making this infectious disease the deadliest infectious disease in the world after the coronavirus.

Still, the Global Fundwhich provides 76% of all international funding to fight TB, said the programs showed signs of recovery in the past year.

The number of people who received services from HIV prevention increased again, after registering a decline in 2020, reaching 12.5 million beneficiaries worldwide, detailed Vanni.

She hopes donors will look to the organization’s track record of success, which it announced last week has helped save 50 million lives over the past two decades.

Under an act of Congress, the United States cannot provide more than one-third of the funds to the Global Fund, a threshold that serves as a challenge for other nations to duplicate that commitment.

The fund provides nearly a third of all international funding to fight the AIDS virus.

Source: AFP