For Immediate Release: 15 MAY 2003
Contact: Sharonann Lynch: +1 646 645-5225

Experts and Advocates Call for G7 Heads of State to Provide Emergency Funding for Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria

Hear from United Nations Special Envoy to Africa, Stephen Lewis, Partners in Health's Joia Mukherjee about the AIDS treatment project financed by Global Fund in Haiti, and northern NGO board member of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria Hélène Rossert, and others this Thursday, 15 May at 4pm Continental Europe Standard Time (CEST), 10 am Eastern Standard Time (EST), 3 pm British Summer Time (BST), on the Global Fund's urgent financial needs.

A day before the G7 Finance Ministers convene in Paris in advance of the G8 meeting, leading advocates of the Global Fund join with public health experts to discuss the potential to scale-up existing programs in countries combating AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria if wealthy countries contribute their "fair share" to the Global Fund.

The Global Fund is facing a budget shortfall of USD 1.6 billion to meet the anticipated need in the third round of grants in October. Launched in January 2002, the Global Fund has disbursed USD 1.5 billion in grants to 160 programs in 85 countries in its first and second Round of grants. The Global Fund was originally called for by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and authorized at the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001.

WHAT: A press briefing by conference call to address the desperate need for new resources to support the GFATM and the potential of programs to provide HIV/AIDS care and treatment, care for orphans, prevention of HIV, and medical interventions to combat the spread and effects of tuberculosis and malaria.

WHO: Journalists can hear from, and ask questions of, UN Special Envoy to Africa Stephen Lewis speaking from Jamaica on countries with the potential to scale-up programs if resources were available, Hélène Rossert, Executive Director of French organisation AIDES, speaking from Paris, and Joia Mukherjee of Partners in Health, speaking from Boston. Joia Mukherjee will discuss the grant from the Global Fund of its HIV/AIDS treatment program in Haiti enabling more than 1,200 people to receive antiretroviral therapy and other examples of how Fund money is successfully expanding programs to provide life-sustaining HIV/AIDS treatment in the poorest of communities of the world. Hélène Rossert will discuss the threat the Global Fund faces from consistent underfunding by donors and the goals of the Fund the Fund coalition, comprised of advocates in wealthy countries pressuring their governments to contribute to the Global Fund on par with the size of their economies.

WHEN: TODAY, 15 May at 4pm Continental Europe Standard Time (CEST), 10 am Eastern Standard Time (EST), 3 pm British Summer Time (BST), the day before the G7 Finance Ministers Meeting in Paris.

HOW: To sign up for the call, contact Sharonann Lynch at Health GAP, +1 212-674-9598 or email salynch@healthgap.org. Callers can also join the conference by dialing directly: 1-800 968 8157 from the US or +1 706-634-0864 for those outside of the U.S. and asking for the FUND THE FUND conference call. The call will be conducted in English. A transcript will be posted on www.fundthefund.org within 48 hours.

Sponsored by the Fund the Fund Campaign [www.fundthefund.org] and RESULTS.

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