The Global Fund has given South Africa an R8.8 billion boost in its fight against HIV and Tuberculosis (TB) over the coming 3 years as more people fail to get on treatment programmes.
Health minister Dr Joe Phaahla will tomorrow be officiating a new Global Fund grant of over R8.8bn for HIV and TB response in Pretoria.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is an United Nations’ international financing and partnership organization that aims to “attract, leverage and invest additional resources to end the epidemics.
The South African National AIDS Council (Sanac) is facilitating the next 3-year cycle which is administered through the Global Fund Country Coordinating Mechanism (GF-CCM).
The Global Fund approved an amount of US$546,766,625 for the period of April 2022 to March 2025 for South Africa’s HIV and TB battle.
In a statement today, the SA government said the GF-CCM is a multi-stakeholder structure mandated by the Global Fund to oversee grant implementation and features representatives from government, civil society, development partners and the private sector.
“This grant is aims to continue supporting the HIV programme and expand the Tuberculosis programme in South Africa,” it said.
Sanac spokesperson Nelson Dlamini said the funding will be used to assist vulnerable groups in the prevention and treatement of these deadly diseases.
“This includes sex workers, adolescent young girls and boys, challenges affecting men and other effects on people depending on the social issues,” Dlamini said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health yesterday revealed that there were at least 2 million people in South Africa who should be on HIV treatment, but are not.
The Health Department has thus pledged R55 billion to provinces as grants to support HIV-Aids and TB programmes, which is 86% of its total budget allocation of R64.5 billion for the 2022-2023 financial year.
