MSF responds to Global Fund replenishment conference

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) response to the final amount of funding pledged at the replenishment meeting of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which concluded in Washington, DC on Tuesday (3 December). At the meeting, the Global Fund announced it had received pledges totaling $12 billion for the next three years, falling short of its minimum target of $15 billion.

"Despite welcomed increases in funding from a few donors, the global effort to fight HIV, TB, and malaria took a big hit today. The replenishment of the Global Fund — the largest donor of such programs—fell short of the minimum funding target to scale up lifesaving programs. People living with HIV and TB can't afford for donor countries to sit on their hands and let the opportunity to curb new HIV infections and TB cases slip by, especially when the U.S. has promised to match other donors’ contributions (by $1 for every $2 pledged, up to $5 billion). Every day, we need to see more people put on treatment for HIV and TB than the day before, and flat funding or only meager increases, like what we’re seeing from Germany, the European Commission and the Netherlands, won’t get us there.

We see in our medical projects every day how effective treatment can save lives and we know that treatment also curbs transmission of both HIV and TB. Now is not the time for donors to take their foot off the gas pedal—both donor countries and those affected by the epidemics need to speed up the scale-up of life-saving treatment.

For its part, the Global Fund should make sure as many people are reached with treatment services as soon as possible, by committing to buying quality medicines at the lowest possible price.”

Sharonann Lynch, HIV and TB Policy Advisor, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Access Campaign.