'Absolute Need' For Donors To Fulfill Global Fund Pledges Is Organization's Most 'Pressing Issue,' Letter To Editor Says

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Also Included In: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses;  Tropical Diseases
Article Date: 04 Jan 2007 - 2:00 PDT

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The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is the "only global enterprise fighting" the three diseases, with an "astonishing low percentage of overhead," Edward Scott and Jack Valenti -- chair and president, respectively, of the Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- write in a Washington Post letter to the editor responding to a Dec. 18, 2006, Post editorial (Scott/Valenti, Washington Post, 12/25/06). The editorial says that the Global Fund is "in disarray" five years after it was launched. According to the editorial, donors and recipient countries on the organization's board in November 2006 "deadlocked over the choice of a successor" to Richard Feachem, who is "stepping down" as the Global Fund's executive director," and there is "uncertainty" over the organization's business model. The Post says there will be uncertainty over the Global Fund's finances, which need to grow, until the "leadership question is resolved and until the new leader finds the right balance between hands-off and hands-on" business models (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 12/18/06). According to Scott and Valenti, more than 770,000 people have access to antiretroviral drugs, two million people have received TB treatment, and more than 18 million insecticide-treated nets have been distributed worldwide to prevent the spread of malaria through the Global Fund. "The most pressing issue" facing the Global Fund is the "absolute need" for the U.S. and other donor countries to "fully fund" the organization, Scott and Valenti write. They add that Feachem "will continue to guide" the organization until a new executive director is appointed (Washington Post, 12/25/06).

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