4 July 2006
By Nozipho Dlamini
South Africa has pledged an additional R1-million to the Global Fund to fight HIV and AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria this financial year.
Making the announcement in Durban today, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said the country remained committed to supporting the Global Fund.
The minister was addressing the Global Fund Partnership Forum that has been meeting in Durban since Saturday regarding the mid-term review of the Fund's replenishment.
"We have so far pledged 10 million US dollars (about R70.3 million) over a period of five years from 2003 to 2007.
"As a gesture of this commitment, I wish to announce that the South African Government will pledge an additional R1-million in this current financial year," she said.
Last year, South Africa pledged about R36-million in contributions to the Global Fund over the next three years.
Dr Tshabalala-Msimang said for its part South Africa had made a commitment to invest a significant amount of resources into the fight against the three diseases domestically.
In the 2003/4 financial year, government spent R900-million in this regard. These resources increased to R1.2-billion in 2004/5 financial year and reached R1.5-billion in the current financial year.
In May this year, the Global Fund reported that of the US$3-billion allocated to AIDS, half was dedicated to prevention activities while the other half was allocated to treatment.
In 2005, the Global Fund was responsible for an estimated 20 percent of all international funding in support of efforts to combat HIV and AIDS, and approximately two-thirds of global funding for programmes against TB and malaria.
Over the past three years, financing has enabled nearly 53 countries to switch from malaria drugs which had become increasingly ineffective to the new artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT), which had the potential to drastically reduce mortality from malaria among children and pregnant mothers.
In some countries, grants have also provided new, long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets, which afford more durable, effective protection against malaria to vulnerable people.
In addition, programmes to combat malaria expanded distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets to 11.3-million, up from 7.7-million in December 2005.
The roll-out of ACT or other effective combination therapies and bed nets - in combination with targeted insecticide spraying and strengthening of expertise, infrastructure and training - is expected to reduce malaria mortality in large parts of Africa in the coming years.
In June this year, with nearly 400 grants approved to combat the disease, financed programmes were proving that where money was invested, treatment and prevention efforts were working.
Newly-compiled performance results showed that as of end April, 544 000 people had begun antiretroviral (ARV) treatment through Global Fund-supported programmes - up from 384 000 six months earlier.
The figures showed a more than four-fold increase since December 2004 in the number of people started on ARV treatment with support from the Global Fund.
Programmes providing DOTS (Directly Observed Short Course Treatment) have detected and treated more than 1.4-million cases of tuberculosis worldwide.
During the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS) in New York last month, NGOs in both developing and developed countries and disease-burdened communities expressed concern about the lack of resources needed to fund their fight against HIV and AIDS.
They called on donor countries to urgently pledge to the Global Fund to fight the disease in order to go ahead with the sixth round of applications for financing.
The Fund is a multi-million dollar investment set up by the UN Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) in 2001 to fight also TB and Malaria.
Though Round 6 calling for proposals for funds was launched in April, concerns were that the Global Fund Board would not fund these if sufficient resources were not made available in the next couple of months.
The funding gap is estimated to be US$800-million for Round 6 and US$2.1-billion for 2006-2007.
The UNAIDS has estimated that US$20- to 23-billion annually is needed globally by 2010 to support scaling up of HIV and AIDS responses in low- and middle-income countries.
This figure is said to be significantly higer when estimates for tuberculosis and malaria over the same period are factored in.
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