[Ip-health] Global Business Coalition teams up w/ Global Fund

[Kate Krauss]

"The partnership brings the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria together with the Global Business Coalition on
HIV/AIDS -- which includes almost 130 international businesses.

Nine firms have already pledged to use their resources in poor countries
where they operate, though there are no details of how much they will
invest."

US Sees Quick Response to Africa's AIDS War
By REUTERS

Published: December 7, 2003

Filed at 3:56 a.m. ET

ENTEBBE, Uganda (Reuters) - Health secretary Tommy Thompson ended an African
tour to promote AIDS awareness at the weekend, saying he was optimistic that
resources to fight the disease would pour in from big business in the next
couple of years.

Thompson visited Botswana, Zambia, Kenya and Uganda, stopping in Nairobi to
launch a partnership between business and a U.S.-backed AIDS project aimed
at encouraging big firms to help fund the battle against HIV/AIDS in the
developing world.
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``From what we have learned there is no question in my mind that those
resources are going to come and come very fast,'' Thompson told a news
conference in Entebbe, 40 kmfrom the Ugandan capital, late on Saturday.

``We expect to make tremendous progress in that direction in 12 to 18
months...This trip has been a ten on a scale of one to ten, everyone has
come away with a new perspective on the problem.''

The partnership brings the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria together with the Global Business Coalition on
HIV/AIDS -- which includes almost 130 international businesses.

Nine firms have already pledged to use their resources in poor countries
where they operate, though there are no details of how much they will
invest.

Members of the large delegation of U.S. officials and business leaders
touring Africa with Thompson said it was clear more drugs and better
infrastructure were needed on a continent where an estimated 26.6 million
people are infected with HIV/AIDS.

``We have learned that the countries we have visited need a massive
investment in infrastructure to deliver life-saving drugs to the affected,''
Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund, said.

``But even with the current situation there is a great potential to scale up
the availability of anti-retroviral treatments to the affected.''

The Global Fund was set up in 2001 as a kind of global war chest against the
three big infectious diseases by the United Nations and the G8 group of rich
nations.

AIDS, TB and malaria kill nearly six million people each year, mostly in
poor countries.