Global funds sought to end AIDS epidemic by 2030

DURBAN, South Africa – Civil society groups and medical experts from around the world have sought the full funding of international financing organization Global Fund, saying this is vital to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

The Philippines, through the Department of Health, is one of the beneficiaries of the Global Fund as it provides funding for the country’s programs on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

In various plenary and satellite sessions at the 21st International AIDS Conference being held here, HIV/AIDS experts and activists noted that fully replenishing the Global Funds to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria is important in ending the epidemic which is included in the Sustainable Development Goals or the intergovernmental set of goals with 169 targets.

According to Peter Van Rooijen, executive director of the International Civil Society Support, the secretariat of the Global Fund Advocacy Network (GFAN), while replenishing the Global Fund would save millions of lives, “failure to do so would unravel years of progress and jeopardize effective programs for reaching key and vulnerable populations at greatest risk for HIV.”

“The road to the end of AIDS, as well as to the end of TB and malaria, depends on the catalytic role of a fully funded Global Fund. The cost of inaction is just too high. We risk reversing tremendous progress and losing millions of lives unless the Global Fund is fully replenished this year,” he said.

The Global Fund is a financing institution that provides support to countries to combat HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. In terms of HIV/AIDS, the agency invested in high-impact prevention, treatment and care programs, helping turn the tide against the epidemic.

The previous years, however, saw a decline in funding for the agency.

A statement of GFAN shows that the Global Fund is preparing for its replenishment conference this September which will be hosted by Canada. During this event, the agency will seek to mobilize at least $13 billion to save an additional eight million lives by 2020; avert 300 million new infections across the three diseases and achieve broad economic gains of up to $290 billion over the coming years.

A fact sheet shows that “inaction” will be costly as it may mean reversing the “tremendous progress” in the past.

It will result in 21 million preventable deaths; 28 million preventable new infections; $24-billion increase in annual costs and increased rates of drug resistance.

Since 2002, the Global Fund has helped save nearly 17 million lives and is on track to reach 22 million lives saved by the end of this year. Prior to ending the epidemic by 2030, the world is aiming for an ambitious treatment target of 90-90-90 by 2020.