23 March 2012
US$ 2 billion invested in more than 100 countries since 2002
Geneva – The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is playing a major role in transforming global TB efforts, enabling an increasing number of people around the world to access good quality diagnosis and treatment of TB, including multidrug-resistant (MDR)-TB. By the end of 2011, programmes supported by the Global Fund detected and treated 8.6 million people with TB.
“The World is currently seeing a fall in TB incidence and both national and international efforts are together turning the tide on the epidemic,” said Gabriel Jaramillo, General Manager of the Global Fund.
“After many years of using the same diagnosis method we have come to a breakthrough with a method that gives the results within hours as opposed to months,” he added.
In 2011 the Global Fund provided an estimated 84 percent of international TB financing, complementing the financing by the governments of the countries affected by TB. With ongoing support for a revitalised, streamlined and more efficient Global Fund, the prospects are encouraging of continued progress in global TB control.
Since 2006 the total number of TB cases worldwide has been falling. Maintaining the gains of Global Fund’s investments in TB control over the past decade, and achieving faster progress towards the 2015 global targets for TB control, depends on the commitment of donor nations to continue to drive down the global epidemic of TB, a disease that knows no borders.