Health experts have warned that projected cutbacks in funding for treating tuberculosis and HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) could have disastrous consequences in efforts to tackle these diseases in these areas. The report Bridging the Gap, released on 7th November by RESULTS UK, Global Health Advocates, ACTION and TB Europe Coalition, of which TB Alert is a member, calls on the European Commission to increase its contribution to the Global Fund to €450 million for 2014-2016. They also appealed to the Global Fund to re-evaluate its eligibility criteria and allocate more resources for the EECA region given its high incidence of drug-resistant TB.
The Global Fund has been the largest and most important international donor for TB and HIV campaigns in these areas and has financed, to date, TB treatment for 380,000 people and provided antiretroviral therapy for 64,000 HIV sufferers. However, under new eligibility criteria, the Global Fund is set to shift funding from middle-income to low-income countries. This will, in turn, cut funding to EECA countries by half, the report warns.
Read a copy of the Bridging the Gap report on the TB Europe Coalition website
Comments are closed.