Global Fund Executive Director Meets with President Of Honduras
01 August 2008
HONDURAS WILL RECEIVE UP TO US$47 MILLION IN ADDITIONAL HIV/AIDS FUNDING
Tegucigalpa – The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Honduras signed an agreement on Friday which paves the way for the Central American country to receive up to US$ 47 million in additional grants to fight HIV/AIDS
The agreement was signed by the Global Fund’s Executive Director, Dr Michel Kazatchkine, and President Manuel Zelaya Rosales of Honduras at the Presidential house in Tegucigalpa and will take total grants from the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS programs in Honduras to as much as US$ 74 million
The new funding will allow Honduras to extend anti-retroviral therapy (ARV) to 13,000 people living with HIV/AIDS from around 6,000 now and to scale up prevention activities
Honduras also stands to receive US$ 8.8 million in new grants from the Global Fund to fight malaria, under a proposal recently approved by the Global Fund’s Board, which will take total funding for programs in Honduras to fight this disease to US$ 16.7 million
At the meeting, Dr Kazatchkine complimented Honduras’ President for his leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the country. He also congratulated Honduras for its success in obtaining the additional funding
Dr Kazatchkine also visited the TORAX hospital in Tegucigalpa, which specializes in the treatment and care of people living with HIV/AIDS and toured a youth project supported by the Global Fund in Angels Valley. Later, he met with representatives of Honduras’ Country Coordinating Mechanism, which is the entity responsible for organizing and submitting grant applications to the Global Fund and for monitoring their implementation, and also met with other Global Fund partners
“Honduras is an excellent example of how civil society, the private sector and the government are actively working together to combat the three diseases,” said Dr Kazatchkine. “They all play a vital role in implementing Global Fund supported programs, both in prevention and treatment activities. It is an approach that has already saved the lives of many Hondurans.
The recently approved HIV/AIDS and malaria grants will bring the Global Fund’s total commitment in Honduras to US$ 98 million. This makes Honduras the third largest recipient of Global Fund grants in Latin America and the Caribbean
After his visit to Honduras, Dr Kazatchkine was due to travel to Mexico City, Mexico, where he will attend the XVIII International AIDS conference from 3-8 August
To date, the Global Fund has committed US$ 11.4 billion to more than 550 programs in 136 countries to support aggressive interventions against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Programs supported by the Global Fund have provided AIDS treatment for 1.75 million people, TB treatment for 3.9 million people, and by distributing 59 million insecticide-treated bed nets for the prevention of malaria worldwide
(*) The Global Fund approves grant proposals covering a period of up to five years. Resources are initially committed for the first two years of the proposal period. Continued funding to cover the remainder of the proposal period depends on satisfactory program performance and the availability of resources. The extension of the grant to cover the remaining years of the original proposal is referred to as Phase 2 funding.
The Rolling Continuation Channel (RCC) allows well performing programs to apply for a six-year extension of the grant, after the initial five-year lifespan of the grant has elapsed.