Global Fund Says Malaria Can Be Defeated

 GENEVA – The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said today that new advances in science and implementation have given the global community the opportunity to control malaria and remove it as a threat to global health. 

 

As people in many countries observe World Malaria Day on 25 April, the Global Fund said commitment is needed by all partners in the fight against malaria to expand and intensify efforts, so it can be transformed from a worldwide killer into a manageable and treatable disease.

“We can defeat malaria, if we work together,” said Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund. “We have a chance to control it and sharply reduce the number of children who die from it each year. If we don’t act decisively, we will be counting the cost for generations." 

Huge progress has been made against malaria over the past decade, driven by simple scientific advances like mosquito nets treated with insecticide, quicker diagnostic tests and more effective antimalarial drugs. Better implementation, in programs supported by the Global Fund, has led to the distribution of more than 310 million nets, far broader access to rapid diagnostic tests and treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapy.

But these gains could now be in jeopardy. A resurgence of malaria may occur unless increased funding is provided to expand efforts to control the disease. Experts warn that a decline in anti-malarial efforts could quickly allow a return to pre-2000 levels of mortality, when 1.2 million people died from malaria. Today, the total is roughly half that amount.  

Dr. Dybul singled out partners like the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM) and the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Financing Health MDGs and for Malaria, Ray Chambers, for their success in raising awareness of the critical need to increase funding.

Earlier this month, the Global Fund announced a target of raising US$15 billion for the 2014-2016 period. When combined with other sources of funding, that will enable global partners to have a transformative effect on AIDS, TB and malaria. 

For malaria, resources would be targeted to achieve universal coverage of insecticide-treated nets and access to effective treatment in the 18 highest-burden countries, where most malaria deaths occur. An additional 200,000 lives could be saved every year than with the funding that is currently available. 

The new funding model recently launched by the Global Fund is expected to achieve greater impact by encouraging ambitious programs and by focusing interventions and financing for specific populations and catchment areas. By reaching highly vulnerable, marginalized and stigmatized groups, including women and girls, sex workers, people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men, people in prison and migrants, more programs will maximize impact while advancing human rights.

The new funding model also strives to align investments in disease programs with national health strategies while strengthening health systems and serving as a platform for promoting the health of a person rather than only combating specific diseases.

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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

Information on the work of the Global Fund is available at www.theglobalfund.org

Follow the Global Fund on Twitter: http://twitter.com/globalfundnews

Join the Global Fund on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/theglobalfund

President of Nigeria Joins Global Fund Efforts to Broaden Fight Against HIV, TB and Malaria

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

Information on the work of the Global Fund is available at www.theglobalfund.org

Follow the Global Fund on Twitter: http://twitter.com/globalfundnews

Join the Global Fund on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/theglobalfund

Global Fund Targets $15 Billion to Effectively Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria

 

BRUSSELS – The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced a goal of raising US$15 billion so that it can effectively support countries in fighting these three infectious diseases in the 2014-2016 period.

 

The Global Fund is determined to accelerate the gains achieved in recent years against AIDS, TB and malaria through strategic investment in programs that can save millions of lives and tens of billions of dollars in future costs. While acknowledging the challenging fiscal environment in many countries, the Global Fund and its partners point to the remarkable value for money that investing in health provides.

 

“We have a choice: we can invest now or pay forever,” said Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund. “Innovations in science and implementation have given us a historic opportunity to completely control these diseases. If we do not, the long-term costs will be staggering.”

 

President Joyce Banda of Malawi, a leader in efforts to prevent and treat infectious diseases in Africa, said that raising money for the Global Fund was essential to defeat AIDS, TB and malaria.

 

“The progress we have made with the support of Global Fund and has shown us what we can do when we come together,” said President Banda. “Defeating these diseases is a shared responsibility. African countries are doing their utmost to provide human and financial resources for the health of their people. But we need strong support of the Global Fund to succeed.”

 

The Global Fund is convening a donor’s conference in Brussels on 9 and 10 April to present an overall needs assessment for the 2014-2016 period and an update on results and impact from recent years, which have helped achieve dramatic success in fighting AIDS, TB and malaria. Donors will be invited to a once-every-three-years pledging conference, known as the Global Fund’s Fourth Replenishment, in late 2013.

 

Working together with technical partners at WHO, UNAIDS, Roll Back Malaria and the Stop TB Partnership, the Global Fund formulated a needs assessment that demonstrates that raising US$15 billion would lead to a transformative effect in the incidence and death rates of HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria.

 

When combined with other funding, including an estimated US$37 billion from domestic sources in implementing countries and US$24 billion from other international sources, a US$15 billion contribution to the Global Fund would allow the collective work to address 87 percent of the global resource needs to fight these three diseases, estimated at a total of US$87 billion.  

 

Reaching the Global Fund’s goal, together with other funding, would mean that 17 million patients with tuberculosis and with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis could receive treatment, saving almost 6 million lives over this three-year period.

 

This level of funding would prevent millions of new cases of malaria, and would save approximately 196,000 additional lives each year than with current funding levels by preventing a resurgence and renewed epidemic of malaria.

 

It would also mean preventing more than one million new infections of HIV each year – saving billions of dollars in care and treatment for the long-term. Antiretroviral therapy could become available to more than 18 million people in affected countries by 2016, up from 8 million in 2012. 

 

Overall, effective funding means that collective efforts can turn what scientists call high-transmission epidemics into low-level endemics, essentially making them manageable health problems instead of global emergencies.

 

The new funding model recently launched by the Global Fund can achieve greater impact by encouraging ambitious programs and by focusing interventions and financing for specific populations. By reaching highly vulnerable, marginalized and stigmatized groups, including young women, sex workers, people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men and prisoners, more programs will maximize impact while advancing human rights.

 

The new funding model also strives to align investments in HIV, TB and malaria with national health strategies while strengthening health systems and serving as a platform for promoting the health of a person rather than only combatting specific diseases.

“We can defeat these diseases by working with partners,” said Dr Dybul. “Collectively, we know what has to be done, and we know how to do it. But we have to work together to succeed.”

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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:

                                                                                    

SETH FAISON

Head of Communications

Mobile: +41 79 788 1163

E-mail: seth.faison@theglobalfund.org

Information on the work of the Global Fund is available at www.theglobalfund.org

Follow the Global Fund on Twitter: http://twitter.com/globalfundnews

Join the Global Fund on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/theglobalfund