TB Monitor International-WHO sets out to raise $500 to $600 million for TB
TB Monitor International-WHO sets out to raise $500 to $600 million for TB
Fund would be used to procure drugs at low cost and create new ones
The World Health Organiza tion plans two major conferences for TB this spring: one to raise consciousness and the second to raise money.
The fundraising conference will be a long-awaited gathering of prospective donors who will hear the pitch for WHO's new campaign to raise between $500 and $600 million for TB.
The other meeting, set for March 22-24 in Amsterdam, will serve as a launch site for WHO's new advocacy campaign, known as STOP TB. The STOP-TB conference will bring together high-ranking officials — ministers of finance and development as well as health — for a lesson in why it makes good economic sense for developing countries to pay more attention to TB.
Plans for the donors' conference are tentative, says Mark Fussell, communications specialist for the STOP-TB campaign. At the ministerial conference, WHO officials are expected to unveil the new STOP-TB campaign "on a grand scale," adds Fussell. The initiative represents WHO's most ambitious effort to date to persuade governments and donor agencies alike that the disease poses a serious threat to developing economies and therefore deserves a serious response in terms of effort and money.
The $500 million fundraising goal for the STOP-TB initiative was announced in November by WHO's new director-general, Gro Harlem Bruntland. The money will be used to improve poor countries' access to anti-TB drugs, says Fussell.
The New York City-based Rockefeller Foundation also has begun moving ahead on a related front, with a conference planned for next month in South Africa to discuss the creation of private-public partnerships for new drugs. (See related story, p. 3, TB Monitor.)
The WHO fundraising campaign will aim to raise $500 to $600 million to confront four problems, says Fussell. The lion's share of the money probably would be used to set up a trust fund, which could help cash-strapped countries fund purchases of anti-TB drugs at discounted rates and in some cases would provide drugs at no cost, he says.
Creating a fund for dealing specifically with multidrug-resistant TB emergencies also is needed. That fund could be used to buy components of the second-line regimens currently being tested in WHO-approved pilot programs and now beginning to be tested in Russia and elsewhere.
The money also is needed to strengthen the infrastructure capacity in countries that might not be strapped for cash but may lack the means to get drugs to patients, says Fussell.
Finally, some of the money would be targeted to fund new drug development.
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