Worrying Signs for Global AIDS Funding

November 6th, 2009

An international non-governmental organization has warned that rich donor governments were showing signs of retreating on their commitment to increase access to life-saving treatment for AIDS patients. In a new report by the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF): Punishing Success: early signs of retreat from commitment to HIV/AIDS care and treatment, two major funders of AIDS treatment in poor countries – the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) were reported to be considering either scaling back or freezing their funding levels.

This retreat on funding support for AIDS comes despite western governments’ promises to increase funding for treatment. Cutting funding for HIV/AIDS treatment would condemn millions of poor people to death. Four million HIV-positive people are currently on anti-retroviral therapy (ARVs) worldwide and more than 6 million more people are in need of the treatment. The board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the main financer of AIDS programs in 140 poor countries, will vote next week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia whether or not to suspend all new funding proposals in 2010.

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