Andrea Downer, Freelance Writer

Mexico City, Mexico:

Latin America and the Caribbean have tripled the amount of money requested from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The region, which is host to the International Conference on HIV/AIDS, currently under way in Mexico City, has requested US$600 million from the fund in response to its most recent request for submissions from low and lower-middle income countries.

Highest ever requested

Executive director of the Global Fund, Dr Michel Kazatchkine, said the figure, which is part of round-eight submissions to the fund, is three times more than requested in 2007. The request from the region is just a fraction of the US$6.4 million asked by 97 countries around the world. However, Kazatchkine said the sum of the global request is almost three times the amount requested in previous years and the highest amount ever requested from the Global Fund.

"The surge in demand for new grant money, from mainly low-income countries, provides strong evidence that countries are now preparing to significantly expand AIDS treatment and prevention," Kazatchkine noted.

"The record amount of requests for Global Fund financing is tremendously encouraging," he continued. "It means we can now begin to take prevention, treatment and care to an even higher scale. Millions of lives have been saved over the past few years, and millions more will be saved thanks to these expanded efforts."

Priority areas

Based on the submissions received, the World Bank anticipates that strengthening community health systems to more effectively support public health facilities, as well as programmes to address the unique vulnerability of women and girls to HIV and AIDS, will be among the priority areas tackled by national programmes with the new funding. Nearly 50 per cent of HIV-positive people worldwide are women.

Approximately 25,000 delegates are attending the six-day conference being hosted by the International AIDS Society. The conference, which is focusing on scaling up access to treatment, prevention and care for persons living with HIV and AIDS, is being held under the theme, 'Universal Access NOW!'