Bangkok - Global Fund - the main multilateral donor for
health programs combatting HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - is
facing a 4-billion-dollar budget shortfall next year, the fund's
executive director said Monday.
'We are facing a financial crisis,' Global Fund executive director
Michel Kazatchkine said. 'We estimate our funding gap in 2010 to be
somewhere around 4 billion.'
Kazatchkine said Global Fund had requested 2.7 billion dollars
from the US, which normally contributes about 30 per cent of the
fund's budget, but was uncertain of the outcome given the economic
crisis among developed nations.
'Times of crisis are times when we should supply more funding, not
less,' Kazatchkine told a press conference kicking off the Harm
Reduction 2009 conference in Bangkok.
Besides funding programmes fighting HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaraia, Global Fund is also the leading multilateral donor
worldwide to harm reduction for intravenous drug users such as
programmes providing methadone, safe needle exchange and access to
anti-retro viral to addicts.
While the Asian region has made progress in providing
anti-retro-viral drugs to HIV/AIDS patients, it has shown less
success in harm reduction for drug addicts.
In Thailand, often cited as a success story in its fight against
HIV/AIDS, some 30 to 40 per cent of the country's estimated 200,000
intravenous drug users are HIV/AIDS positive, said Pratin Dharmarak,
country representative for Population Services International.
'Services for IV drug users has been overlooked,' Pratin said.
Thailand has this year received 100 million dollars from the
Global Fund to combat HIV/AIDS, a portion of which will go towards
harm reduction programmes for drug users.
But with a budget shortfall expected next year, similar programmes
in the region are likely to be cut.
'We are facing challenges in being able to fund the next
applications that are coming in what we call Round 9,' Kazatchkine
said.
He acknowledged that Myanmar was expected to be one of the
countries applying for funding this year.
The Global Fund pulled out of Myanmar in 2006, blaming a lack of
access to information on how its money was being spent in the
military-dictatorship.
A Global Fund team was sent to Myanmar, also called Burma, last
month to help authorities reapply for funding. Myanmar has one of the
highest HIV/AIDS rates in the region, and one of the worst public
health systems.
'I do hope very much that Burma will apply and will be
successful,' Kazatchkine said.
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