[e-drug] AIDS Tx Scale-Up Threatened: Donor Countries Fail to Fill Funding

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E-DRUG: AIDS Tx Scale-Up Threatened: Donor Countries Fail to Fill Funding
Gap
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AIDS TREATMENT SCALE-UP EFFORTS THREATENED: DONOR COUNTRIES FAIL TO FILL
THE FUNDING GAP

Paris, June 16th 2003 ? A key opportunity to support the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria has been missed: donor countries have failed to
muster up enough funding to seriously tackle these killer diseases in
developing countries.  At a Paris meeting today sponsored by the French
Government and Global Fund it became clear that a 50% deficit for October
2003 funding round has not been filled by new donations. The fund currently
has access to only about US$450 million to cover projects that will need
between US$800 million a US$1 billion.

Unless the Global Fund is replenished, countries' proposals to provide
life-saving treatment for people suffering from AIDS, TB or malaria will be
refused or postponed.

Small-scale AIDS treatment projects run by MSF and others in developing
countries have long proven that antiretroviral (ARV) treatment is possible
in resource-poor settings. Countries are beginning to take first steps
towards expanding access to ARVs and some are making serious efforts to
scale up. These programs will remain the exception rather than the rule if
the international community doesn't live up to its promises and commitments
to fund planned programmes.

Invited by the Malawian Ministry of Health, MSF and other groups providing
ARV treatment in Malawi have been involved in drafting the national
treatment programme ? one of the national proposals sent to the Global
Fund. "The plan is well-thought out, sound and realistic. Depending on the
price of the drugs used, the Malawian government aims to get 25,000 to
50,000 patients on treatment by 2007," said Dr Nicolas Durier from the MSF
ARV programme in the Chiradzulu district in southern Malawi, counting some
800 patients at present.

"If the necessary Global Fund money doesn't come through, up to 50,000
Malawians living with HIV/AIDS will be left to their own devices, without
hope of their lives being extended. Turning down the funding will also
deliver a fatal blow to the government's ability to tackle the AIDS
pandemic in a responsible manner," Dr Durier continued. A total of 800,000
Malawians are currently living with HIV/AIDS.

"We have so far hailed the Global Fund as one of the few global initiatives
with the potential to start addressing the AIDS crisis seriously," said Dr
Bernard Pécoul, director of MSF's campaign for Access to Essential
Medicines. "Everyone agrees that treatment is a key component in responding
to the AIDS pandemic. But as long as the only cash on the table to support
concrete, technically viable proposals such as those received by the Global
Fund is a fraction of the estimated need, there is no way countries can do
what everyone wants them to do: treat their people."

Contact: MSF/Daniel Berman tel. ++41-79-286 9649
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MSF has been caring for people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries
since the early 1990's, and its first ARV treatment programmes began in
2000. MSF now runs 23 ARV projects in 14 countries and has so far treated
5,000 people, 80% of whom are still receiving treatment. By the end of
2003, MSF aims to open another 18 projects, bringing the total number of
people on treatment in MSF's projects to 10,000.
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