TUBERCULOSIS: Global Fund Board making critical decisions on TB funding this week

From:	stoptbadvocacy
To:	STOPTBNEWS
Date:	Wed, Sep 12, 2012 9:13 am
	Attachment ReactiontotheGFallocationforTB.pdf

The Global Fund (GF) is currently the biggest external funder of TB care. However, although TB diagnosis and treatment are highlycost-effective treatment intervention in terms of saving lives and preventing spread of infection, right now the GF Board is discussing a new funding allocation model that would cap TB at only 16%. If adopted, this would have hugely adverse effectson recent progress against the TB epidemic.

Concretely, these low funding levels would mean that the global TB funding gap of over US$ 2 billion per year for TB would widen and that global scale-up of TB diagnosis and treatment will halt and potentially reverse. So far, there is no other donor who could step into the Global Fund’s role. Decreased funding would represent a major hindrance in achieving the targets of the Global Plan to Stop TB, especially for MDR-TB and HIV-associated TB.

The proposed funding share of 16% for TB does not represent an equitable distribution among the three diseases. A fair share would be measured according to mortality (34%), DALYs (27%) or the global funding gap per disease (22%).

The proposed funding allocation does not correctly reflect the high-quality of recent TB proposals which were accorded at 25% of funding by the review committee that met in August.

Therefore, proposed positions are:

·         We call for a regional approach, which does not put one disease against another.

·         If an allocation per disease is adopted, we call for a minimum of 20% for TB.

·         If an allocation per disease is adopted (versus a regional approach), we urge that this remains an interim approach lasting a maximum of one year. We ask the Global Fund Board to set a timeline for ending this interim period.

Please find attached a discussion paper that has already been endorsed by more than 60 individuals and organizations.

We welcome comments and feedback, which you can send to stoptbadvocacy@who.int

The Stop TB Partnership Secretariat