Funding gap for AIDS help persists -Global Fund
By Daniel Bases
UNITED NATIONS, June 9 (Reuters) - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria requires another $7 billion to $8 billion to reach its funding goals for 2008, the fund's executive director, Michel Kazatchkine, said on Monday.
"The estimated gap, again, this year is around $7 to $8 billion. It is going to increase to $10 to $12 billion in the next two to three years," Kazatchkine told reporters at a briefing.
The fund received pledges worth nearly $10 billion over three years in September 2007, helping it move toward a plan to disburse $6 billion to $8 billion annually for the three-year period from 2008 to 2010.
Kazatchkine said the fund was helping pay for 1.75 million people to receive HIV drugs in low- and middle-income countries.
That is nearly 60 percent of the 3 million HIV-infected people in those countries getting drug treatment, according to data released last week by the Geneva-based World Health Organization.
The number of people in low- and middle-income countries getting treatment is approximately 30 percent of those in need, according to UNAIDS.
There are an estimated 33.2 million people worldwide infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as of December 2007.
"We are hopeful that these gaps are narrowing ... but let's be very careful, because 2008 ... is a time when some people say you are doing alright with the AIDS epidemic, now we have to focus on something else. We need a very sustained effort and we still need increased resources," Kazatchkine said.
Since 2002, the fund has received $20 billion in pledges and contributions. The United States, the largest donor, makes up roughly 30 percent, followed by France, a spokesman for the fund said.
NEEDLESS INFECTIONS
Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS, told reporters at the same briefing: "Every day, almost 7,000 people are needlessly infected with HIV because they do not have access to proven interventions to prevent transmission."
The WHO says 5,700 people die every day from AIDS.
UNAIDS believes the annual rate of new HIV infections appears to have decreased over the last decade, with an estimated 2.5 million people newly infected in 2007 -- down from 3.2 million in 1998.
The estimate of the number of people infected with HIV was reduced significantly in the latest UNAIDS report for 2007. The new estimate of 33.2 million replaces the 2006 estimate of 39.5 million, due to improved methodology.
Piot responded to criticisms that the spread of HIV among the heterosexual community was overstated in previous estimates. "The pace of the spread heterosexually is indeed slower than what we anticipated but it is not a covering up," he said.
"We see also by the way what we call a growing feminization of the epidemic in every single region ... Today half of all people living with HIV are women. In Africa it is 61 percent and it is growing in every country, every region and that is mostly because of heterosexual transmission," he said.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 68 percent of all adults with HIV, 90 percent of the world's HIV-infected children and 76 percent of all AIDS deaths in 2007. (Editing by Eric Beech)
UNITED NATIONS, June 9 (Reuters) - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria requires another $7 billion to $8 billion to reach its funding goals for 2008, the fund's executive director, Michel Kazatchkine, said on Monday.
"The estimated gap, again, this year is around $7 to $8 billion. It is going to increase to $10 to $12 billion in the next two to three years," Kazatchkine told reporters at a briefing.
The fund received pledges worth nearly $10 billion over three years in September 2007, helping it move toward a plan to disburse $6 billion to $8 billion annually for the three-year period from 2008 to 2010.
Kazatchkine said the fund was helping pay for 1.75 million people to receive HIV drugs in low- and middle-income countries.
That is nearly 60 percent of the 3 million HIV-infected people in those countries getting drug treatment, according to data released last week by the Geneva-based World Health Organization.
The number of people in low- and middle-income countries getting treatment is approximately 30 percent of those in need, according to UNAIDS.
There are an estimated 33.2 million people worldwide infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as of December 2007.
"We are hopeful that these gaps are narrowing ... but let's be very careful, because 2008 ... is a time when some people say you are doing alright with the AIDS epidemic, now we have to focus on something else. We need a very sustained effort and we still need increased resources," Kazatchkine said.
Since 2002, the fund has received $20 billion in pledges and contributions. The United States, the largest donor, makes up roughly 30 percent, followed by France, a spokesman for the fund said.
NEEDLESS INFECTIONS
Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS, told reporters at the same briefing: "Every day, almost 7,000 people are needlessly infected with HIV because they do not have access to proven interventions to prevent transmission."
The WHO says 5,700 people die every day from AIDS.
UNAIDS believes the annual rate of new HIV infections appears to have decreased over the last decade, with an estimated 2.5 million people newly infected in 2007 -- down from 3.2 million in 1998.
The estimate of the number of people infected with HIV was reduced significantly in the latest UNAIDS report for 2007. The new estimate of 33.2 million replaces the 2006 estimate of 39.5 million, due to improved methodology.
Piot responded to criticisms that the spread of HIV among the heterosexual community was overstated in previous estimates. "The pace of the spread heterosexually is indeed slower than what we anticipated but it is not a covering up," he said.
"We see also by the way what we call a growing feminization of the epidemic in every single region ... Today half of all people living with HIV are women. In Africa it is 61 percent and it is growing in every country, every region and that is mostly because of heterosexual transmission," he said.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 68 percent of all adults with HIV, 90 percent of the world's HIV-infected children and 76 percent of all AIDS deaths in 2007. (Editing by Eric Beech)
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