The Global Fund Needs $ 14 Billion to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Union

Peter Sands

Peter Sands, director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said at least $ 14 billion was needed to strengthen efforts to fight HIV / AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and to eradicate persistent pandemics killing millions of people.

Sands said the money could save 16 million lives and halve the balance of the three diseases.

These funds will be used to strengthen health systems in poor countries that are not equipped to cope with current epidemics and are not able to cope with new potential epidemics.

"The new threats mean that there is no central region," Sands said in a statement. "We must protect and consolidate the gains we have made, otherwise these gains will be erased, the death and death cases will increase again and the prospects for the eradication of epidemics will disappear".

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is a group of governments, civil society partners and the private sector that invests around $ 4 billion a year to fight these infectious diseases. The fund was established in 2002 and has since reduced the number of deaths due to AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by around one-third. However, the elimination of these outbreaks is still far away.

In 2016, TB killed 1.6 million people, including 300,000 infected with HIV, making it one of the top ten leading causes of death in the world.

Malaria kills nearly half a million people each year, mostly infants or young children in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the case of AIDS, about 37 million people worldwide are infected with HIV and about 15 million of them do not have the necessary antivirals.

Sandes acknowledged during a telephone conversation how difficult it is to encourage international donors to commit funds to achieve such an objective. But he added that with the extent to which the fund could attract the participation and investments of the governments of the countries affected by the epidemic, he is confident that it will have a major impact. "If we intervene now, we will save the lives of millions of others."