2.8 million people with HIV treated by mid-year: Report

Around 2.8 million people with HIV across the globe have received life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment by mid-year, a 22 percent increase from the like period last year, according to a report released Wednesday.

The Global Fund, which released its report in Geneva, is a unique global public-private partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The Global Fund supported tuberculosis programmes have so far provided seven million people with effective TB drugs treatment.

"This is a 30 percent increase from mid-2009. Tuberculosis remains the leading cause of death among people infected with HIV. The World Health Organization estimating that one in four TB deaths worldwide is HIV-related," said an official statement.

The Global Fund also reported progress in the fight against malaria, with a cumulative total of 122 million insecticide-treated bed nets delivered through its funded programmes to families at risk of contracting the disease.

With more than $10 billion disbursed to more than 500 grants so far, the Global Fund currently provides around one-fifth of international resources to fight AIDS, as well as 63 percent of international funding to fight tuberculosis and 60 percent of international funding to fight malaria.

"As a result, 5.7 million lives have been saved. In less than a decade, the Global Fund has gone from an idea to a highly efficient tool to turn donor resources into lives saved," said Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund.

Additional results showed that a total of 2.3 billion condoms have been distributed while 930,000 HIV-positive pregnant women have received a complete course of ARV prophylaxis to reduce mother-to-child transmission.

Besides, 120 million HIV counselling and testing sessions have been conducted and 4.9 million basic care and support services have been provided to AIDS orphans and vulnerable children since the Global Fund started financing grants in 2003.

The results reported combine data from individual programs supported by the Global Fund in 144 countries.

In October 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will chair a meeting of the Global Fund's donors where they will pledge resources for the period 2011-13.

"The Global Fund assesses that it will need between $17 billion and $20 billion to respond to demand from developing countries for resources to fight the three diseases during the coming three years," he said.

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