Global Fund Replenishment Gains Steam
Global Fund
24th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2022), Montreal, Canada.

As the push for adequate funds to address HIV, tuberculosis and malaria reaches its climax with next week’s replenishment meeting of the Global Fund, the fund’s latest report reveals it has saved 50 million lives between 2002 and 2021.

The Global Fund raises money in three-year cycles and seeks $18 billion for its seventh replenishment, which culminates in a meeting on 19 September hosted by US president Joe Biden. This money would enable a further 20 million people to be saved.

Since its formation, it has supported 23.3 million people with HIV to get antiretroviral treatment, 5.3 million to get TB treatment and distributed 133 million mosquito nets in areas with a high malaria prevalence, according to the report released on Monday.

In 2010, only 23% of people who needed ART were getting it, whereas this had grown to 75% by the end of 2021. 

But COVID-19 has set back a number of global goals, particularly for TB treatment, which nosedived from 69% of all those who needed it on treatment to only 57% in 2020. In addition, TB deaths rose that year for the first time in a decade. 

Even though TB kills more people than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined, the global body will continue allocating just 18% of its overall funding to TB, while 50% goes to HIV/AIDS, and 32% for malaria for the first $12 billion of funds that are spent spent between 2023-2026.

new split of 45% for HIV, 25% for TB, and 30% for malaria will, however, be applied as cumulative funding rises above $12 billion in that period. 

“In 2020, for the first time in our history, key programmatic results declined across all three diseases,” according to the Global Fund. “With only eight years to go, COVID-19 has knocked us further off course from the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of ending the three epidemics by 2030.”

TB and HIV interventions are starting to improve with more people being tested and treated as Global Fund grantees mount “catch-up” activities to find and treat those who did not access care during the pandemic. 

Pharma support for the Global Fund

Meanwhile, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA)  reaffirmed its “longstanding commitment” to support the Global Fund on Tuesday.

“Without further delay, we should re-commit to the remarkable and proven vision of the Global Fund, combining human ingenuity, strategic investments, and cross-sectoral partnerships as the recipe to achieve progress toward our goals to eliminate and control three of the deadliest diseases in the world – HIV, TB, and malaria,” said IFPMA Director General Thomas Cueni.

“From the introduction of novel classes of ART to the development of new TB diagnostics, to the first-ever malaria vaccine launched in 2021, the biopharmaceutical industry has played a key role in advancing progress in the fight against HIV, TB, and malaria,” he added. “Pharmaceutical companies continue to advance R&D and are now exploring how vaccine breakthroughs made during COVID-19, such as mRNA technology, could bring new hope for responding to disease.” 

Describing the fund as “an exemplary model of public-private partnership”, the IFPMA has produced a report that “underscores the role of innovative partnerships for R&D, capacity building, public awareness, and community engagement to improve global health outcomes related to the three diseases while beating back the consequences triggered by COVID-19”.

Germany pledges 30% more for the Global Fund

Last week, German Development Minister Svenja Schulze announced Germany’s commitment of €1.3 billion to the fund.

“Every year, these diseases infect and kill countless people,” said Schulze. “The good news is that there are ways of treating and preventing the diseases. We can end these epidemics if we act in solidarity. And that is precisely what we have committed to do.”

Germany’s major pledge represents a 30% increase compared to the previous three-year period,

The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) pledged $33 million to the fund last week, which also raises its committment by 30% more than before.

 

Image Credits: Jordi Ruiz Cirera/IAS.

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