ABUJA –Nigeria’s President,
Goodluck Jonathan, agreed to help lead the Global Fund’s efforts to
raise funds this year, a critical role in the partnership to fight AIDS,
tuberculosis and malaria all over the world.
President Jonathan met with Mark
Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund, on Monday to discuss
joint efforts to control these deadly infectious diseases in Africa’s
most populous nation and globally.
Dr. Dybul praised President
Jonathan’s effective leadership and personal commitment to expanding
health services, embodied by Nigeria’s “Save One Million Lives”
initiative that is aiming to dramatically increase access
to basic quality health services, particularly for women and children.
President Jonathan accepted an
invitation be a Co-Chair in this year’s replenishment efforts by the
Global Fund. Other Co-Chairs include UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and heads of state from developed countries, emerging
economies and the private sector.
“Working together, we can make
tremendous gains,” said Dr. Dybul. “With the existing science, our
understanding of the epidemiology and our collective experience in
combating the diseases, we now have an opportunity to
control them. If we do not, the long-term costs will be incalculable.”
During his first visit to
Nigeria as Executive Director of the Global Fund, Dr. Dybul also met
with the Minister of Health, Prof. Chukwu Onyebuchi and Minister of
State for Health, Dr. Muhammad Pate, and other key stakeholders,
partners and implementers to discuss opportunities to further
strengthen collaboration.
Mr. Aig-Imoukhuede, Chairman of
Friends Africa, said: "The upcoming replenishment of the Global Fund is
its most critical replenishment and ought to be given the highest levels
of support for the fight against these diseases
to be won."
Dr. Dybul announced that the
Global Fund is providing up to US$ 288 million in additional funding to
help accelerate programs to prevent and treat HIV and malaria in
Nigeria. This new funding is being made available under
a new funding model, and Nigeria is one of 47 countries accessing new
funding through renewals, grant extensions and redesigned programs in
2013.
The Global Fund’s latest HIV
grants are targeting pregnant women and “most-at-risk” populations such
as women and girls, sex workers, people who use drugs, men who have sex
with men, while the TB grants support expansion
of diagnosis and treatment capacity including treatment of
multidrug-resistant TB.
Malaria grants are aiming to
achieve nationwide coverage of mosquito nets through mass campaigns and
routine distribution, while at the same time increasing availability of
antimalarial medicines and diagnostic tests.
Despite promising advances in
recent years, such as declining AIDS and TB mortality and a sharp
increase in the use of insecticide-treated nets, Nigeria faces serious
health challenges. Over the last 12 months, Nigeria
and the Global Fund signed agreements in worth a total of US$ 560
million to support programs that will help significantly expand
prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the three diseases.
Dr. Dybul appealed to President Jonathan to expand domestic investment in health even further. Nigeria has the second-largest
number of people living with HIV in the world after South Africa. But
only 30 percent of those needing treatment are on antiretroviral therapy
and only 16 percent of pregnant HIV-positive
mothers are getting prophylactic treatment to prevent them from passing
on the virus to their babies.
The country also has the
second-highest child and maternal mortality in the world, in absolute
numbers, and accounts for nearly one-third of deaths from malaria
globally. While TB mortality has fallen significantly since
2003, case detection rates are still among the lowest in the world.
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The
Global Fund is an international financing institution dedicated to
attracting and disbursing resources to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS,
TB
and malaria. The Global Fund promotes partnerships between governments,
civil society, the private sector and affected communities, the most
effective way to help reach those in need. This innovative approach
relies on country ownership and performance-based
funding, meaning that people in countries implement their own programs
based on their priorities and the Global Fund provides financing where
verifiable results are achieved.
Since
its creation in 2002, the Global Fund has supported more than 1,000
programs in 151 countries, providing AIDS treatment for 4.2 million
people,
anti-tuberculosis treatment for 9.7 million people and 310 million
insecticide-treated nets for the prevention of malaria. The Global Fund
works in close collaboration with other bilateral and multilateral
organizations to supplement existing efforts in dealing
with the three diseases.
For more information, please contact:
ANDREW HURST
Head of Media and Translations
Mobile: +41795616807
E-mail:
Andrew.hurst@theglobalfund.org
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