News Release
Physicians Tell Congress: Raise Global Fund Contribution
More than 400 physicians and scientists urged Congressional appropriators to increase U.S. support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria during the international partnership’s upcoming funding cycle in a letter released today. The world’s largest international health funding organization, the Global Fund is credited with supporting responses that have saved more than 27 million lives worldwide since its 2002 launch. It’s 6th funding replenishment comes with goals to end the impacts of the leading global infectious disease killers in sight but requiring greatly accelerated efforts to achieve. The letter, signed by clinicians and researchers working across America and around the world, notes that increasing resistance to antimicrobial drugs, including those used to treat tuberculosis and malaria poses a growing challenge to attaining those goals, that will require strengthened prevention, training, surveillance and supply chain responses to overcome.
As the largest donor to the Global Fund the U.S. contribution to the fund is pivotal, comprising a third of total funding and setting a target for other donors to reach, the letter, to Senate and House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee leaders, notes. The Global Fund has set a minimum of $14 billion overall for the next three years to sustain the efforts needed. That will require a 12 percent increase over the previous U.S. contribution to funds, according to the letter, with a $1.56 billion appropriation for the Global Fund in fiscal year 2020.