US Is Sending $300 Million Immediately to Newly Created Global Fund to Fight AIDS

The United States has earmarked $500 million for a new fund to fight AIDS around the world and is sending $300 million of it immediately to help finance new programs to tackle the disease, a senior US official said Tuesday. A year ago, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said a "war chest" of $7 billion to $10 billion a year was needed from governments and philanthropists to wage an effective global campaign against AIDS. That led to the creation of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, a private foundation created to mobilize contributions quickly that now has more than $1.9 billion, according to UN officials. Its board is meeting in New York and is expected to announce later this week the first projects it will support.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson told a news conference Tuesday that $300 million already has been appropriated for the fund, and the Bush administration has asked for $200 million more in this year's budget. "At the end of this year we will have contributed at least $500 million, but Congress has the opportunity and usually increases the amount of money," he said. Annan told the fund's board on Tuesday that the only way it can make a real difference is "to achieve a mobilization of all society in every affected nation." Annan, now a patron of the fund, stressed that it must operate "as an effective complement to other actors" involved in fighting the diseases including governments of developing countries, donor countries, international organizations, nonprofit groups and the private sector.

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