Guyana secures global fund grant while Suriname, Haiti fail to meet submission deadline
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| Published on Friday, November 14, 2008 |
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GEORGETOWN, Guyana: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, has approved 94 new grants worth US$ 2.75B for countries to access over the next two years, and Guyana is among the beneficiaries taking some US$ 17M of the aid.
However, Guyana’s Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, is concerned about the low level of approvals granted to Caribbean and Latin American countries.
The announcement was made over the weekend by the board of the fund at a round table discussion in India, and Ramsammy confirmed that US$17.2 million was approved for two grants for Guyana (US$7.1 million grant for the National Tuberculosis Programme and a US$10.1 million for strengthening health systems under the National AIDS Programme).
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Guyana’s Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy.
GINA Photo |
This brings Guyana’s total funding from the Global Fund to over US$34.2 million. In Round Three, the country received US$20.2 million for HIV and US$2.1 million for malaria.
The Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Bolivia and Suriname did not make the submission deadline, while disapprovals were given to Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and several group proposals.
Most of the Caribbean and Latin American countries submitted proposals for the three diseases and of the 11 that received approval, only Guyana was granted approval for two grants.
The other countries receiving one grant for the fight against HIV are Paraguay and Nicaragua, while Guyana and Peru will receive the two tuberculosis grants. Malaria grants were approved for Brazil, Columbia,
“I am concerned that the Caribbean and Latin American countries are not getting so much support as other regions, and this can lead people to believe that the disease burden is not as strong, and that our Gross Domestic Product is high, which is not the case,” Ramsammy said.
The minister lamented the need to ensure the region receives adequate support for its health programmes as less would leave the countries vulnerable.
Ramsammy, the current president of the World Health Assembly, said 174 proposals were submitted globally and according to the Global Fund, 90 percent of the approved grants are for low- income countries, with the majority of resources – 77 percent – for Africa and the Middle East. Asia and the Western Pacific will receive 14 per cent of the newly approved with Latin America and the Caribbean, 6 percent, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 6 percent, with most of the resources going to malaria programmes, which accounts for 51 percent.
Proposals for AIDS and tuberculosis account for 38 percent and 11 percent, respectively, of the approved funding.
“This is the highest amount of new financing approved by the Global Fund ever, and will significantly help the world in achieving global targets such as universal access to AIDS treatment and prevention, and cutting the number of deaths from tuberculosis and malaria by half by 2015,” said Rajat Gupta, Chair of the Global Fund Board, according to the Fund’s website.
The Global Fund is a public- private partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat HIV/ AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
This partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities represents a new approach to international health financing.
The Global Fund works in close collaboration with other bilateral and multilateral organizations to supplement existing efforts dealing with the three diseases.
Funding is provided by donors, with the major contributors being the United States, Canada, European countries, Australia, World Bank and the Gates Foundation, among other private and public donors. | | | | Reads : 1218 |
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