Global Fund Returns to Burma with Large Grant

The Global Fund will return to Burma with a two-year US $110 million grant to fight three diseases: HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

In August 2005, the Global Fund, the world’s leading donor of grants to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, terminated its anti-AIDS program in Burma. The five-year program would have provided more than US $98 million.

At the time, the fund said that the military regime had placed prohibitive restrictions on the implementation of its aid.

Global Fund said the decision to terminate its projects was made in the light of “the [Burmese] government’s newly established clearance procedures restricting access of the principal recipient [the UN Development Programme], certain sub-recipients, as well as the staff of Global Fund and its agents, to grant-implementation areas.”

On Nov. 12, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Ethiopian health minister and chair of the Global Fund board, said in a press release: “This [new] grant is based on the country’s own needs and priorities, and it is therefore a particularly effective source of financing.”

Since 2006, the Three-Diseases (3-D) Fund— a project supported by the European Commission, Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and two organization in Sweden and Australia—has pledged $120 million to work in Burma over a five-year period. It has provided grants to support 42 NGO and UN projects.

The 3-D Fund has provided anti-retroviral treatments to 8, 865 people with HIV, 30,000 TB patients and 700,000 cases of malaria.

Denise Jeanmonod, the communication officer for the 3-D Fund in Rangoon, told The Irrawaddy that there are 75,000 people in Burma who need  drugs to fight HIV/AIDS.

"However much more work needs to be done, particularly to bring lifesaving medicines in HIV and malaria, the Three Diseases Fund welcomes the decision of the Global Fund," she said.

Phyu Phyu Thin, a member of the National League for Democracy and a well-know HIV/AIDS activist in Rangoon, said  it is essential that  the government allows the aid to reach the people who need it most, especially in the countryside.