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We'll meet Aids target - WHO
30/06/2004 19:14 - (SA)
Geneva - The United Nations World Health Organisation said on Wednesday it believed it would achieve its ambitious plan to get three million HIV-infected people on to antiretroviral drugs by 2005.
The target is likely to be reached, thanks to global campaigns and work by individual countries, said Alex Ross, chief of staff of the WHO group that deals with HIV/Aids.
"When you add it all up, you quickly get to the point of having three million people," said Ross.
The "3 by 5" project was announced by WHO director-general Lee Jong-wook when he took office last year, as part of a global campaign to halt the spread of Aids.
The UN-led Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced on Wednesday that it had approved grants worth US$2.9bn over five years.
Other agencies also have projects
The grants - the fourth set of projects approved by the fund - will put another 932 000 people on to antiretroviral treatments, bringing the total for the fund to 1.6 million people.
The United States already has announced separate plans to treat two million people by 2007, and a number of other agencies also have treatment projects.
More than 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, and more than three million died last year.
Widespread use of antiretroviral treatments in industrialised countries has reduced Aids deaths by 70%.
WHO estimates more than five million HIV patients need antiretroviral drugs, but before the latest push started less than 300 000 had access to them.
The Global Fund's new grants also will finance 123 million anti-malaria treatments and provide 44 million bed nets treated with insecticide, which experts say reduce malaria among children by a quarter.
About 640 000 people with tuberculosis will receive treatment under the grants. Nearly 70% of the money will go to Africa.
Happy, but fund-raising must go on
The fund - which was set up in 2002 on the initiative of the Group of Eight wealthy nations and Russia - has so far provided $3bn for 310 projects in 129 countries.
But, it still needs to keep campaigning for money if it is to continue its work, said Christoph Benn, the fund's external relations director.
"This week, we can afford to be happy. Next week, we have to start mobilising more resources again," he told reporters. "We will need $2.3bn next year."
- AP
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