The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund) is a public-private partnership and an international financing institution that supports large scale prevention, treatment and care programs against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and also works to strengthen health systems in developing countries.
The Global Fund is the largest multilateral funder of health programs in developing countries and collaborates with governments, donors, technical partners, private companies and civil society organisations. The Global Fund provides around 80 per cent of international funding for tuberculosis, 50 per cent for malaria and 20 per cent of funding for HIV/AIDS.
Since its inception in 2002, the Global Fund has helped countries tackle these diseases and has saved 8.7 million lives. It has provided 3.6 million people with anti-retroviral therapy for HIV; treated 9.3 million people with tuberculosis and distributed 270 insecticide-treated nets to prevent malaria.
The Global Fund has supported programs in 151 countries. Key results include the decrease in new HIV infections worldwide; the decline of tuberculosis rates in all six World Health Organization regions; and the reduction in malaria cases by half or more in several countries.
The last 18 months have seen an increase in essential, life-saving interventions in programs supported by the Global Fund. Rresults include the treatment of malaria and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, which has increased by 50 per cent. Further, TB/HIV co-infection services have grown by more than 100 per cent.
The Global Fund is implementing a new Strategy for 2012–2016, reforming its financial management, governance and strategic priorities to maximise the impact of its investments. The Global Fund is focussing on more strategic investments in 20 high impact countries which account for 70 per cent of the disease burden for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Seven of these are in the Asia-Pacific region.
Australia is supporting the Global Fund to address these life-threatening diseases in the world's poorest countries. The Global Fund is also a key partner for Australia in achieving its strategic goal of saving lives, through large scale disease prevention, treatment and care programs. Since 2004, Australia has provided
$250 million to the Global Fund and has committed to provide a further $170 million by 2013. Australia's contributions over 2011–2013 is expected to help provide antiretroviral drugs for 71,000 people with HIV, treat 63,000 people with tuberculosis, and distribute over 1.7 million insecticide treated bed nets.