Yahoo – AFP, Michel Comte, September 17, 2016
Montreal
(AFP) - Donors pledged nearly $13 billion on Saturday in the fight to eradicate
AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by 2030, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
announced at an international conference.
"It is
my great honor to announce that for the fifth replenishment conference for the
Global Fund to end AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, we have reached our goal
together," he said at the close of the donors' meeting.
"We
have raised almost $13 billion, and in doing so, we have saved eight million
lives."
Trudeau
hosted the conference, which was attended by several heads of states as well as
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill
Gates, and pop singer Bono -- who co-founded the nonprofit group ONE, which
works to reduce poverty and disease in Africa.
The U2
frontman praised world leaders for coming together to make "the single
largest multilateral investment in a global health project in human
history."
"We
can deliver a knock-out punch to three of the deadliest killers of our time,
and today's accomplishment makes that possible," he said.
Created as
a public-private initiative, the Global Fund has so far spent $30 billion on
programs to fight the three deadly diseases around the world, with most going
to Africa.
It has been
credited with helping to save 22 million lives and preventing 300 million
infections over the past decade as it pursues a UN target of eradicating AIDS
by 2030 and the other diseases even sooner.
But it
needed to raise another $13 billion to fund its operations over the next three
years through 2019.
The United
States, which has provided nearly a third of the total funding so far, pledged
an additional $4.3 billion.
The
second-largest donor, Britain, pledged $1.4 billion, followed by France ($1.2
billion), Germany ($900 million), Japan ($800 million) and Canada ($600
million).
"We
have the knowledge and tools to end HIV, TB and malaria by 2030," Ban
said. "Let us work together to make this world healthier and better. I
count on your strong commitment and leadership."
'The
tipping point'
Global Fund
executive director Mark Dybul told the conference: "We are the generation
that can keep these diseases under control,"
"We
are on the right side of the tipping point," he said.
"But
the thing about tipping points is they can go in either direction, and these
next three years will be absolutely essential to maintain the trajectory to get
to the end of TB and malaria and the control of HIV."
Failure to
do so now would risk allowing the diseases to come back stronger and in
drug-resistant form -- a worrying possibility that world leaders are set to
debate at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.
Growing
drug resistance would cause the costs of treatment to soar. The average price
for treating tuberculosis, for example, could jump from $400 per patient now to
$15,000 for a drug-resistant version, Dybul said.
Ban warned
that the emergence of antimicrobial resistance "threatens our response to
all three diseases."
He called
on the Global Fund to also join the fight against the "global health
threat" drug resistance poses.
Explaining
the need for continued research in an interview with AFP, Gates said that
"if you keep using the same tools, all the three diseases (develop)
resistance mechanisms."
His
foundation pledged another $600 million to the fund on top of the $1.6 billion
it has contributed since its inception.
Gates
advocated simple measures to stem the spread of the diseases, such as forming
youth clubs where boys and girls would learn how to avoid contracting HIV, and
distributing mosquito nets to prevent malaria.
He also
heralded scientific breakthroughs, including new insecticides, longer-lasting
vaccines in the fight against malaria, and new diagnostic tools and drug
regimens for identifying and treating tuberculosis.
"We
still have a lot of work to do to end these epidemics," Gates said.
"But I am optimistic that we can get there. A key critical reason for this
is that we have science on our side."
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