By IANS
New Delhi : The Global Fund, a Switzerland-headquartered international charity, will provide a $100 million grant to India for battling HIV/AIDS.
The move brings the total approved amount of Global Fund resources to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in India to $492 million since 2005.
“The Indian government has requested an amount of $747 million to fight the three diseases and so far we have signed an agreement for $492 million, out of which $160 million has been disbursed,” Global Fund executive director Michel Kazatchkine said Thursday.
“The new $100 million agreement will be utilised to fight AIDS both in terms of treatment and communication efforts,” he said.
He said the fund has helped 80,000 HIV/AIDS patients in India to avail antiretroviral treatment and some 245,000 TB patients get treatment. It has also provided 1.5 million insecticide treated bed nets to curb malaria.
“We are happy with our association with India and that too for a social cause. We will continue funding the important work that is being done to provide care and treatment to people living with AIDS and change social attitude towards patients,” he said.
These resources will also be used to tackle stigma associated with the disease through efficient communication efforts and to train more health professionals, said T. Rahman, Global Fund’s team leader of South and West Asia.
Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss termed the development as “good news for India’s fight against HIV/AIDS”. He said: “These new resources would be put to use in best possible ways.”
Rajat Gupta, chairman of the Global Fund Board, and a group of experts including Kazatchkine are currently in India to assess the Global Fund sponsored programmes.
Apart from officials, they also interacted with business leaders to mobilise resources and help them understand the health condition of their own employees as well.
Global Fund is a unique charity body with presence in 136 countries, mobilising its resources from both government and private parties.
Global Fund was created in 2002 and several top companies like apparel brand GAP, mobile phone brand Motorola and international bank American Express. Among nations, the US and France are its top two patrons.
In India, World Health Organisation and UN AIDS are its partners to help the country achieve success in programmes like Stop TB and Roll Back Malaria.
The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), the apex government body to monitor and curb HIV/AIDS in India, is the top recipient of the Global Fund resources.
“Since AIDS is a huge threat in India, we are utilising 80 percent of the resources for this disease,” said NACO chief K. Sujatha Rao.