Abstract
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (“The Global Fund”) was established in 2002 as a partnership between governments, civil society, and the private sector to increase the global financing of three of the world's most devastating diseases in developing countries [1]. Under the executive directorship of Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, the Global Fund to date has attracted US$4.7 billion in financing through 2008, and in its first two rounds of grant making has committed an estimated US$1.5 billion to 93 developing countries [1]. By the spring of 2007, the Global Fund announced that it had provided antiretroviral treatments to more than 1 million HIV-infected individuals; it had treated 3 million tuberculosis patients with direct observed therapy; and distributed more than 30 million insecticide-treated bednets for malaria [2]. In its 5-year assessment, The Lancet declared that The Global Fund has “become a major force in global health, providing 20% of the donor funding for HIV/AIDS, 64% for malaria, and 70% for tuberculosis” [2].
Highlights
Since 2005 we have advocated the need to establish a suitable financing mechanism to combat some of the most common and highest burden neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), namely ascariasis, trichuriasis, hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, and trachoma [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
Such drugs can be used to treat the NTDs through mass drug administration, and since 1988, they have been administered by Ministries of Health with support of public–private partnerships, resulting in substantial reductions in the number of cases of these conditions where implementation has been achieved [3]
The African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control reported that in 2006 48 million people were treated in 19 countries [11], the Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis treated over 258 million people in 44 countries [12], the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) has overseen the distribution of over 40 million treatments against schistosomiasis in six countries [13], and other partners have added 13 million schistosomiasis and 24 million deworming treatments to children globally [14]
Summary
Since 2005 we have advocated the need to establish a suitable financing mechanism to combat some of the most common and highest burden neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), namely ascariasis, trichuriasis, hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, and trachoma [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. Despite their global public health and economic importance [3,4], as well as the proven success of their control and even elimination in many settings [10], the NTDs have been overshadowed by
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