Global Fund Saves 44 Million Lives Globally In Past Two Decades – Report
The latest Global Fund report released in Montreal, Canada on July 31 has revealed that the organisation has been able to save 44 million lives around HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in over 100 countries between 2002 and mid-2022.
The mid-term report was premised on the significant progress the Global Fund has made in its “Breaking Down Human Rights-Related Barriers” to HIV and TB services launched in 2017 specifically in 20 countries which are Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Nepal, the Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda and Ukraine.
The intervention was launched to provide intensive financial and technical support to the above-mentioned countries to address stigma and discrimination, criminalization and other human rights-related obstacles continue to threaten progress against HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria especially as they affect the key population.
Executive Director of the Global Fund, Peter Sands was quoted in the report saying, “One of the most powerful lessons from the history of the fight against HIV is that success in confronting such a formidable disease cannot be achieved through biomedical interventions alone,”
According to the report, in the context of HIV and TB, men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, people who inject drugs, people living with HIV, and people in prisons and other closed settings are socially marginalized, often criminalized and face a range of human rights abuses that increase their vulnerability to the diseases and undermine their access to health services.
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The key findings of the midterm assessments, which were conducted between 2019 and end of 2021, revealed that all countries involved in the Breaking Down Barriers initiative saw progress in removing human rights-related barriers to HIV services, with a mean increase of 0.9 points from the baseline on the 0-5 scale.
On funding of these human rights funding is unprecedented. In the 20 countries of the Breaking Down Barriers initiative, Global Fund investments in programs to reduce human rights-related barriers have increased more than 10-fold – from slightly over US$10 million to now over US$130 million.
The Global Fund provides 30% of all international financing for HIV programs (12% of all available resources) and has invested US$22.7 billion in programs to prevent, diagnose and treat HIV and AIDS and US$3.8 billion in TB/HIV programs as of June 2021. In countries where the Global Fund invests, total AIDS-related deaths have dropped by 65% over the last 20 years” the report read in part.
The Global Fund is a worldwide partnership to defeat HIV, TB and malaria and ensure a healthier, safer, more equitable future for all. Since 2002, the Global Fund partnership has saved 44 million lives.
Senior Coordinator, Human Rights, the Global Fund, Ralf Jurgens during a question and answer session exclusively for journalists alumni from the Thomson Reuters Foundation-Global Fund partnership held via Zoom platform yesterday, hinted that his organisation would reach out to the Nigerian government by December this year ahead of making additional funding available to the country to address human rights issues on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria by January.
