Global Fund: the degenerating masquerade

[Guest guest]

Cross posting from " BTS " <break-the-silence@...>

Gaëlle Krikorian

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On October 11 and 12 2001 the first meeting of the interim board of

the Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, was held in

Brussels – the Fund was called to by United Nations Secretary-General

Kofi n at the African Heads of States Summit on AIDS in April

2001.

Six months after the initital announcement, there are more reasons

than ever to be worried by this initiative.

At present, contribution pledged are estimated to about 1.5 billion

USD to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This constitutes a

staggering tenfold miss of the 10 billions USD mark which was set by

the United Nations in April in order to fight AIDS alone.

Before the end of this year, the 38 members of the board will have to

settle several issues :

Prioritization of funding between the three diseases (AIDS,

tuberculosis, malaria) - The most-developed countries want the Fund

to avoid the most difficult, and therefore expensive, disease to

fight : AIDS. At the same time, some countries such as Japan feel the

Fund should broaden its goal and aim to tackle health in poor

countries in general (why not go even further : why

not spend the 1.5 billion USD just on eradicating world poverty ?)

Prioritization of funding between `treatment' and `prevention only'

- The most-developed countries want the Fund to concentrate on the

least difficult, least expensive intervention : prevention - at the

expense of treatment interventions, and especially treatment of

people living with HIV/AIDS.

Eligibity of specific drugs and drug classes for financing by the

Global Fund The most-developed countries wish to exclude from the

list of drugs financeable by the Fund recent anti-infectives, under

patent from pharmaceutical corporations which market them at very

high prices, at the same time that more and more affordable generic

versions are coming on-line.

Moreover, most of the interim board members who in fine will make

those decisions have no expertise whatsoever in poor country health

care systems, and suffer from exceedingly caricatural representations

about third world realities. They are for instance unaware of the

many successes won by more than a few community initiatives in

providing comprehensive care to people with aids.

Each day, 10,000 people without access to treatment die of aids. Yet,

and in spite of worldwide mobilization, most rich countries still

refuse to provide financial support for comprehensive care for people

with aids in poor countries. Pledges to the Global Fund remain orders of

magnitude below minimum commitment levels set by the United Nations ; at the

same time, the original objectives of the Fund are being deliberately

diluted and the long-disproven myth of prevention being effective in the

absence of treatment is once again bandied about.

In this context, there can be only one conclusion: this Global Fund

initiative is nothing but a diversion manoeuver.

The Fund serves to distract world opinions from the issue of access to

generic medicines for poor countries, as well as the debate about WTO

agreements on patents and their relation to current global health

crises.

The Fund serves to buy rich countries a cheap PR stunt showing them as

seriously mobilized, while pledged amounts remain ridiculously low.

The war against terror receives 30 times more than the war against AIDS,

which takes 10,000 lives each and every day.

The Fund serves to hide a massive withdrawal of North/South

development aid and assistance, behind shiny international initiative

announcements void of any susbtance beyond their high PR value.

That is why civil society must mobilize, and signify to the members

of the Fund¹s interim board the imperious necessity of financing

comprehensive care programmes for people with aids living in impoverished

countries, now and on a massive scale.

Gaëlle Krikorian

North/South Commission

Act Up-Paris

BP 287 - 75525 Paris cedex 11

Tel: 33 1 49 29 44 75

Port: 33 6 09 17 70 55

Fax: 33 1 48 06 16 74

E.mail: galk@...

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BTS discussion archives are available at:

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[Guest guest]

Hello,

This is in reponse to Gaëlle Krikorian's posting on Global health fund.

Your information about the meeting is accurate but your interpretation is

not entirely correct. It was a pleasure to participate on Oct 20-31 in

Baltimore with a technical Advisory group to help advise about the

expenditures for AIDS. It is my impression from the work done there in

preparation for the next meeting of the interim Board that indeed money

will be directed to HIV/AIDS. The preparation of the briefing documents

for the Chair of the Board was accomplished. There is not enough money,

agreed, but money will be directed to HIV/AIDS and there has been

considerable thought and work put into this.

Wilfert

M Wilfert MD

Scientific Director, Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation

Professor Emerita,

Duke University Medical Center

1917 Wildcat Creek Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Ph 919 968 0008

Fax 919 968 0447 "

E-mail:<wilfert@...>

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