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HEALTH: Developed World Cripples Hope of Global Fund on AIDS
Analysis - By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Oct 17 (IPS) - A defining moment to help millions infected by the
HIV/AIDS epidemic appears to be aglow in cynicism, courtesy of the world's
richest countries, rather than hope that is desperately needed at this hour.
That was the impression created this week by governments of the developed
world - including Britain, Japan and the United States - during a meeting
in Thailand to discuss the amount of money to be spent next year to combat
the pandemic in the developing world.
It was clear during pivotal three-day meeting of the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria, that the already yawning gap
between the verbal pledges made by the donor countries and the actual
amount committed to the fund was destined to grow even further.
What is more, the decisions made in Thailand's northern city of Chiang Mai,
where donors to the fund gathered for their meeting, reveals that the
frequency with which people are dying of AIDS-related disease - more than
8,000 deaths a day - is still not worthy of a dramatic response.
In financial terms, the numbers amount to this: the donor countries
committed 620 million dollars as grants from the Global Fund to developing
countries for 2004. This covers 70 projects in 43 countries.
That 620 million dollar figure is far short of what the Joint United
Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates are the funds needed to
carry out its work for the same period - about 10.5 billion U.S. dollars.
To a large slice of people with HIV who had begun to depend on the Fund for
their supply of anti-AIDS drugs, the decision by the rich nations amounts
to a death sentence, since the flow of money for the much needed
anti-retroviral (ARV) drug cocktail will dry up.
''This is a major disappointment, because it will mean a drop in the
number of people to be covered by the fund for ARV treatment,'' Sharonann
Lynch of Health GAP, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) that
lobbies for better health care for the world's poor, told IPS. ''We were
hoping for an increase in funds at the meeting but it did not come.''
A Red Cross official laments likewise. ''The Global Fund is a lifeline
for people with HIV, but it is now under threat,'' Elden Chamberlain,
manager of the Australian Red Cross's Asia Pacific HIV/AIDS Programme,
affirmed in an interview.
That is because in January this year, at its second round of meetings,
the fund approved 818 million dollars worth of grants to developing
countries to pursue work on AIDS-related activities, including enabling
people access to ARV therapy.
At the first round of the fund, in April 2002, it disbursed 616 million
U.S. dollars as grants.
But the history of the fund provides indicators that the developed
countries, for all their early support for this U.N. initiative, had little
qualms about not breathing life into an initiative to battle the HIV/AIDS
epidemic.
In July 2001, the Group of Eight (G8), a club of industrialised
countries that groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Russia and the United States, backed the idea of creating a Global Health
Fund.
This came a month after a special session on HIV/AIDS at the U.N.
General Assembly resolved to set up the fund to tackle the world's
deadliest disease, HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.
In identifying the amount the fund needed to take on these disease in
the developing world - 10 billion U.S. dollars per year - this U.N. special
session echoed a call made in April that year by Kofi Annan, U.N. secretary
general. Annan appealed for a ''war chest to wage global war against AIDS''
at a summit meeting of African nations.
But the financial picture two years after this significant development
conveys an air of negligence on the part of the G8 countries.
Japan, for instance, had promised the fund 200 million dollars over a
three-year period from 2003-2004, but ''only a small portion, a little over
80 million U.S. dollars of that amount has been paid,'' reveals a statement
by Fund the Fund, a network of NGOs and humanitarian organisations lobbying
to strengthen the fund.
The U.S. government has reneged likewise, after the President George W
Bush took the lead in July 2001 by declaring that the United States would
pump one billion dollars into the fund.
During this round of the Global Fund's meeting, the U.S. government
should have committed one billion dollars given its share of the global
economy, but that was not the case, asserts Lynch.
''President Bush has only asked for 200 million dollars from the
Congress for the Global Fund, which is 30 percent less than what was given
for the previous year, 350 million dollars,'' she adds.
Meanwhile, activists are accusing the British government of trying to
slow down the fund's spending and are pointing fingers at the Australian
government for not committing any money towards the fund.
''The Australian government's failure to contribute to the Global Fund
to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is extremely disappointing,'' the
Fund the Fund statement notes.
The uncertain fate of the fund comes a month after the World Health
Organisation (WHO) declared that the failure to deliver anti-AIDS drugs to
the millions who need them is a ''global health emergency''.
In September, the U.N. health agency revealed that only 300,000 people
in the developing world had access to ARVs, a cocktail of three drugs that
helps
people with HIV from swiftly succumbing to death due to AIDS.
In an attempt to reverse this dismal trend, the WHO declared it was
determined to get ''three million people on ARVs by the end of 2005.'' That
would mean covering half of the estimated six million people with HIV -
there are 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS - who need the anti-AIDS
drugs to prolong their lives.
The Global Fund will be a vital ally, the WHO admits. But those who
control the fund's purse strings appear to be content denying it of its
intended mission, as this week's meeting indicated.
Said Sudjai Tapa, a 37-year-old Thai with HIV. ''What is clear to me is
that those who are making the decisions at the Global Fund's meeting don't
see AIDS as a significant issue,'' he told IPS.
(END/IPS/AP/HE/HD/SD/WD/MMM/JS/03)
(END/2003)
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