Global Fund faces 4-billion-dollar budget shortfall next year

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.