News Releases

Tanzania and Global Fund Sign New Grants to Accelerate End of Epidemics

30 January 2018

DAR ES SALAAM – The Global Fund and health partners in Tanzania yesterday signed grant agreements to work toward ending the epidemics of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

The new grants aim to reduce the average malaria prevalence in Tanzania to less than 1 percent by 2020 as well as reduce the TB incidence rate by 20 percent and TB deaths by 35 percent by 2020. The investments will also seek to increase coverage of HIV services to achieve the 90-90-90 fast-track treatment targets – 90 percent of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90 percent of people who know their HIV-positive status are accessing treatment and 90 percent of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads – by 2020

The new investments will support efforts to enroll nearly 400,000 additional people on antiretroviral treatment, support distribution of an additional 34 million mosquito nets and help enroll 100 percent of TB patients with HIV on antiretroviral treatment, among other targets. These funds will also support TB care and prevention through case detection and diagnosis. Tanzania is one of 13 countries, where the Global Fund is supporting innovative programs, and expanding the most successful approaches to find cases of TB missed by the public health systems. The grants, worth US$525 million, will cover the implementation period 2018-2020.

Tanzania’s partnership with the Global Fund over the years has achieved great impact. Malaria cases that are treated without testing have decreased from 36 percent in 2014 down to 5 percent in 2017. Death rates from malaria have also fallen from 41 deaths per 100,000 population in 2004 to 10 deaths per 100,000 population in 2016. The national HIV prevalence among people aged 15-49 years has also dropped from 10 percent in 1990 to 4.7 percent in 2016. As for TB, Tanzania has maintained TB treatment success rate of more than 90 percent countrywide.

Ummy Ally Mwalimu, the Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children in Tanzania, commended global health partners for their support to Tanzania.

“Without the Global Fund and other global health partners, these achievements could not have been attained,” said Mwalimu. “We commit to ensuring continued efforts to scale up and sustain provision of health services that are good quality, equitable, accessible, affordable, sustainable and gender sensitive.”

“Meaningful engagement of civil society organizations is very key in dealing a serious blow to the HIV epidemic in Tanzania,” said Joan Chamungu Msuya, Executive Director of Tanzania Network of Women living with HIV. “As civil society organizations, we were represented from the very beginning of this round of grants. As we move forward, we encourage continued, meaningful and greater involvement of civil society organizations.” 

Linden Morrison, Head of the Global Fund’s High Impact Africa II Department, said: “Tanzania is a great example of how global health partners can achieve remarkable impact. By working together, we can end HIV, tuberculosis and malaria as epidemics in Tanzania by 2030.”