Maravi

Global Fund chairperson meets Levy

Global Fund chairperson meets Levy
By Masuzyo Chakwe and Mwala Kalaluka
Tuesday March 11, 2008 [03:00]

PRESIDENT Levy Mwanawasa yesterday said the contribution of the Global Fund to Zambia's response to AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria has been very significant. And Global Fund on AIDS, Tuberclosis and Malaria board chairperson Rajat Gupta on Sunday expressed concern that the HIV/AIDS fight had not recorded wins over the last five years despite all the available solutions.

Speaking when Gupta paid a courtesy call on him at State House, President Mwanawasa said Zambia to date had received US $172 million from the Global Fund. He said the progress made in the national response to AIDS would not have been possible without the support of all partners, including the Global Fund.

President Mwanawasa said he was particularly pleased to note that the recently announced Round Eight guidelines provided for support to women and girls, who bore the brunt of HIV and AIDS.

"Zambia needs resources for programmes and services to empower women and girls to enable them to make decisions and give them options to deal with matters that affect their lives.

I am particularly pleased that the Global Fund has in the Round Eight guidelines provided for support to integrated public, civil society and community health systems strengthening.

This has been a source of major concern to my government and has limited our efforts towards universal access to prevention, care and treatment," he said.

President Mwanawasa said approximately one million Zambians were HIV positive, 295,240 of whom were in need of antiretroviral therapy. He said political commitment was key to the success of the AIDS response and it was for this reason that a Cabinet committee on HIV and AIDS was established. He said he considered the response to AIDS as one of his top most priorities and demanded regular updates on matters concerning HIV and AIDS from the Cabinet committee on AIDS.

President Mwanawasa said another key structure within the coordination and management of the response to HIV and AIDS was the country coordinating mechanism (CCM) of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

"The CCM in Zambia is composed of 20 members, as follows; six from government, seven from the NGO sector, one from the Network of Zambian People Living with HIV and AIDS, one from the private sector, one from academia and four from international organisations. It will be seen from the above analysis of the CCM that my government adheres to the principles of openness and inclusiveness and has created an excellent enabling environment for civil society participation," he said.

And Gupta said Zambia was a very important partner for the Global Fund in the fight against the three diseases.

"As we have already heard we have four recipients in the country, two ministries and two civil society organisations which is a model we want to take forward," he said.
Gupta said another important thing was strengthening of the overall health systems.

He said programmes like tuberculosis and malaria had been said to take away resources from the overall health system.

"So we want to do the exact opposite, we want to strengthen the health system in that the Global Fund is more committed to making drugs that help strengthen the overall health system," he said.

He also commended Mataka for understanding the role of women and girls. Gupta said he was pleased with the number of people who were on the life-saving drugs and called for special emphasis on the prevention of mother to child transmission.
He said programmes in tuberculosis needed to be scaled up.

And speaking on arrival at Lusaka International Airport, Gupta said a review of the performance of the Global Fund in the quest to address the HIV/AIDS indicates that the levels of infection were still more than those of people receiving treatment.

Gupta, who was responding to a question on what efforts should be done to address the high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in sub-Saharan Africa, said AIDS activists had no excuse as to why they should not reduce the tally of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

"We are looking forward from all the strategies coming from our partners; because we do not make the strategies as a Fund," he said. "That is the momentum that is going to come in the next few years."

Gupta, however, cautioned that the current efforts in the fight against the pandemic would be rendered inefficient if funds disbursed towards HIV/AIDS interventions were not well managed.

He said the Global Fund on AIDS, TB and Malaria had put up mechanisms in place to ensure that the money it disbursed was spent on the right programmes.

Labels: GLOBAL FUND, MWANAWASA

posted by MrK @ 4:44 AM