Global Fund moves to assure Africans

In a bid to calm the nerves at the16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Global Fund Thursday moved to declare that it has taken transitional funding mechanisms that will ensure continued treatment for people living with AIDS.

Speaking at the final plenary session of the ICASA conference, Dr Debrework Zewdre, deputy director, Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said the Global Fund has enough money to cover all existing rounds.

Dr Zewdre said the transition mechanism will bridge gaps that may arise following reduced pledges and delayed payments by those who had pledged.

Two weeks ago, Global Fund adopted exceptional measures to suspend Round 11 but denied that the Global Fund is on demise.

While calling on the donors and African leaders to play their part in funding the Global Fund, Dr Zewdre denied that the demise of the Global Fund.

She disclosed that other than one donor (unnamed) who has decided to decrease funding, none else has said they are going to decrease funding.

On World AIDS Day, US President Obama issued a strong call to action to the global community to join the United States in giving the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria the funds it was promised.

He urged for continued reforms of the Global Fund processes so that investments will yield even greater health returns in the future.

According to Obama, the Global Fund remains on track to support more than $8 billion in grant renewals and new grant commitments between now and the end of 2013. “These commitments will allow countries to continue and, in many cases, continue to scale up successful programs to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria,” he said adding that the Global Fund will remain a major financier of the fight against the three diseases.

News from the Global Fund’s Board indicate heightened activities to transform the Fund’s grant making process.

The reform process is to allow the Fund to transition to a more flexible, sustainable and predictable funding model that will ensure that resources go to high-impact interventions and to people who need the help the most.

The Board has also taken steps to better target Global Fund resources on countries with the greatest need and least ability to pay.

This means that G20 countries with Upper Middle Income status and a less-than-extreme disease burden will no longer be eligible for grant renewals and that at least 55% of Global Fund resources will be directed to Low Income countries.

According to Obama, no countries will be forced to suspend any essential services as a result of the decision to make Round 11 a transition round.” Existing grantees with grants expiring between January 1, 2012 and March 31, 2014, may apply for up to two years of additional funding if necessary to ensure continuation of essential prevention, treatment and care programs currently financed by the Global Fund,” he said.

“The problem faced by the Global Fund however is not of pledges but that those who make pledges delay in paying up. “Most are paying in the last quarter of the year,” said Dr Zewdre.

She assured that the Global Fund has enough resources to cover all rounds, all on treatment will stay on treatment.

That notwithstanding, she added that the estimated cost of supporting patients will decline slightly by 10 percent by 2020, but will still be above USD1.7 billion per year that is currently used to fund anti-retroviral drugs.

The repercussions will be huge. It is expected that mortality will rise rapidly should treatment be discontinued. This translates to 5 million people in Africa who currently need treatment are on the waiting list and will be made to suffer more if funding delays.

Currently, the entire continent is covering only 49 per cent of people who need to be on treatment

AIDS has killed over 15 million Africans since 1981 and many more have been affected.

Meanwhile, HIV/AIDS civil society groups Thursday interrupted plenary session on the final day of the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to petition the African governments and the African Union to consider as an emergency the need to develop a clear time bound health and HIV strategy for domestic finance sources.

They also demanded that the donors honour their pledges towards Round 11 funding.

“Now more than ever, we ask our African governments to play a proactive role in funding health and HIV. It is not time to rest, it time to move with the response,” the civil society told the gathering.
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