One wonders who speaks for the Global Fund and why they are not quoted.

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Myanmar probable to re-get global fund aid: UN officials

Myanmar stands an opportunity to re- get the Global Fund aid to fight HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria after it was stopped nearly two years ago, a local media quoted the remarks of United Nations health officials as saying Monday.
Besides the remarks of Dr Mario Ravigilione, Director of anti- TB Department of the World Health Organization (WHO), the possibility for Myanmar to re-obtain the global fund aid was also implied during a recent meeting at Geneva's World Health Conference between UNAIDS Director Michael Sidibe and Myanmar Minister of Health Dr Kyaw Myint, the Voice news journal said.

The Global Fund suspended its aid to Myanmar on Aug. 19, 2005 but after 10 months, Myanmar received another committed Three- Disease (3-D) Fund to fight HIV, TB and malaria in substitution from a group of six donors on June 9, 2006.
According to earlier official report, the five-year 3D Fund project, which started last April and is worth of a total of about 100 million US dollars, is being funded phase by phase by the group of six donors of the European Commission, Sweden's Sida, the Netherlands, United Kingdom's Department for International Development, Norway and Australia's Aus AID.

Out of 27 million dollars' fund requirement for the launching of the first-year-phase project, the 3-D fund has obtained 10 million dollars from the donor group, according to the European Commission which has also committed 20 million euros (35 million US dollars).

Earlier similar commitments for the 3-D fund reportedly include 36 million dollars from the United Kingdom Department for International Development, over 11 million dollars from the Australian Government Aid Program (Aus AID)'s and 770,000 US dollars from Norway.

Meanwhile, a recent workshop involving Myanmar, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS stated that 338,911 people were estimated to have lived with HIV/AIDS and the HIV prevalence in Myanmar has reduced from 1.5 percent in 2000 to 1.3 percent in 2005.

It is estimated that about 100,000 new TB patients develop annually and about half of them are infectious cases, the Myanmar health ministry said, disclosing that Myanmar achieved 95 percent TB case detection rate and 84 percent treatment success rate in 2005.

Meanwhile, the trend of malaria morbidity and mortality has been decreasing at present with malaria morbidity per 1,000 population reducing from 24.5 in 1988-89 to 9.3 in 2005-06, while its mortality down from 10.4 to 3.1 correspondingly, according to the health ministry.

Myanmar has designated AIDS, TB and malaria as three major communicable diseases of national concern and efforts are being made to combat the three diseases.

Source: Xinhua

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