This article is a week late.
Phyu Phyu Tin says it is essential that aid reaches people who live in the countryside. Let's consider HIV. Most injecting drugs users shoot in urban areas. Female sex workers usually work in towns and cities. And the most active men who have sex with men have sex in the cities. So prevention activities must be primarily in cities. All people living with HIV have a right to care no matter where they live.
Tuberculosis is everywhere. Only malaria is concentrated in rural areas.
[him] moderator
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Global Fund Returns to Burma with Large Grant
Lawi Weng
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Global Fund will return to Burma with a two-year US $110 million grant to fight three diseases: HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
In August 2005, the Global Fund, the world’s leading donor of grants to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, terminated its anti-AIDS program in Burma. The five-year program would have provided more than US $98 million.
At the time, the fund said that the military regime had placed prohibitive restrictions on the implementation of its aid.
Global Fund said the decision to terminate its projects was made in the light of “the [Burmese] government’s newly established clearance procedures restricting access of the principal recipient [the UN Development Programme], certain sub-recipients, as well as the staff of Global Fund and its agents, to grant-implementation areas.”
On Nov. 12, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Ethiopian health minister and chair of the Global Fund board, said in a press release: “This [new] grant is based on the country’s own needs and priorities, and it is therefore a particularly effective source of financing.”
In 2006, the Global Fund was replaced by the Three-Diseases (3-D) Fund—developed as a substitute program by the European Commission, Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and two anti-AIDS organization in Sweden and Australia.
The five-year 3-D Fund project to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria was projected to cost about $100 million. The 3-D Fund reported that it has provided nine nongovernmental organizations in Burma with a total of $630,000 this year.
Denise Jeanmonod, the communication officer for the 3-D Fund in Rangoon, told The Irrawaddy: “We can’t provide all what it needs at the moment. There are 75,000 people in Burma who need ARV drugs to fight HIV/AIDS.
Phyu Phyu Thin, a member of the National League for Democracy and a well-know HIV/AIDS activist in Rangoon, said that it is essential the aid reaches the people who need it most, especially in the countryside.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17249
