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Global fund for AIDS meets in Berlin

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria began a donor meeting in Berlin yesterday in a bid to raise billions of dollars to fight the diseases that kill 6 million people a year.

The run-up to the three-day meeting saw a dire warning from UNAIDS about a lack of resources and a call from rock star Bono for rich nations to help the cash-strapped fund.

"When something works this well it deserves to be scaled up -- aggressively. No more excuses for under-funding this most high-minded public health mechanism," the singer said in a statement from his Africa advocacy group DATA.

DATA said the Group of Eight must use the donor conference to go beyond a pledge made at its June summit to give US$60 billion over the next few years to the fight against AIDS.

"The G8 summit outcome was disappointing. This conference is a real chance for Germany and the G8 to demonstrate that they will invest in programs that have a real impact," DATA's European director Oliver Buston said.

In a report released in Geneva, UNAIDS said global funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment must be more than quadrupled over the next three years to US$42.2 billion to stop the pandemic from worsening.

The UN agency said if money came in at the current pace, funding from public and private sources will reach about US$15.4 billion in 2010 and fall further behind the growth of the disease.

"A failure to move beyond the limited successes achieved to date will only cause the epidemic to worsen," it warned.

The Global Fund -- which relies on donations from states, foundations and big business -- says that it needs between US$12 billion and US$18 billion to fund its existing programs and initiate new ones between next year and 2010.

It expects to collect pledges of US$7 billion to US$8 billion in Berlin.

On the eve of its meeting, Britain announced that it would spend ?1 billion (US$2 billion) to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria through the Global Fund over the next eight years.

Germany, which holds the G8 presidency this year, is due to announce that it will write off 50 million euros of Indonesia's bilateral debt on condition that Jakarta invests the equivalent amount in programs to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

The Global Fund was set up five years ago at the instigation of then-UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and has so far spent some US 7 billion in grants for 450 programs in 136 different countries. It claims to have saved 2 million lives by giving medicine to AIDS and tuberculosis sufferers.
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