World TB Day: 10 years of sustained Global Fund support
US$ 2 billion invested in more than 100 countries since 2002
Geneva – The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is playing a major role in transforming global TB efforts, enabling an increasing number of people around the world to access good quality diagnosis and treatment of TB, including multidrug-resistant (MDR)-TB. By the end of 2011, programmes supported by the Global Fund detected and treated 8.6 million people with TB.
“The World is currently seeing a fall in TB incidence and both national and international efforts are together turning the tide on the epidemic,” said Gabriel Jaramillo, General Manager of the Global Fund.
“After many years of using the same diagnosis method we have come to a breakthrough with a method that gives the results within hours as opposed to months,” he added.
In 2011 the Global Fund provided an estimated 84 percent of international TB financing, complementing the financing by the governments of the countries affected by TB. With ongoing support for a revitalised, streamlined and more efficient Global Fund, the prospects are encouraging of continued progress in global TB control.
Since 2006 the total number of TB cases worldwide has been falling. Maintaining the gains of Global Fund’s investments in TB control over the past decade, and achieving faster progress towards the 2015 global targets for TB control, depends on the commitment of donor nations to continue to drive down the global epidemic of TB, a disease that knows no borders.
Watch the Global Fund’s World TB Day story from South Africa
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The Global Fund is a unique, public-private partnership and international financing institution dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria. This partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities represents an innovative approach to international health financing. The Global Fund’s model is based on the concepts of country ownership and performance-based funding, which means that people in countries implement their own programs based on their priorities and the Global Fund provides financing on the condition that verifiable results are achieved.
Since its creation in 2002, the Global Fund has become the main financier of programs to fight AIDS, TB and malaria, with approved funding of US$ 22.6 billion for more than 1,000 programs in 150 countries (as of 1 December 2011). To date, programs supported by the Global Fund are providing AIDS treatment for 3.3 million people, anti-tuberculosis treatment for 8.6 million people and 230 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.
