GNA-Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have appealed to the Government to contribute at least $ 2 million to the Global Fund 7th Replenishment to protect progress towards ending Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria in the country.
Mrs Cecilia Senoo, the Executive Director Hope for Future Generations (HFFG), said this was necessary to help increase domestic resources to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 while ending the three diseases which were still claiming and ravaging lives.
The CSOs made the appeal at a media engagement organised by HFFG in Accra to press on the need for the Government to make a commitment to the 7th Global Fund Replenishment.
The Global Fund established in 2000 sought to fight the deadliest pandemics such HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Over the 20 years of its establishment, the Global Fund partnership has invested US $53 billion, saving 44 million lives, and reducing the yearly death toll from the three diseases by 40 per cent in the countries in which the Global Fund invests.
Ghana is the first recipient of the Global Fund grant and as of September 2022, the Global Fund had invested US$ 1,285 billion to support the national HIV, TB and malaria programmes.
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The Fund has also help strengthened Ghana’s health systems with an additional US$ 87 million approved under the COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM) in 2020-2022 and has recently been invested to support a robust national COVID-19 response and thereby further strengthen Ghana’s core health system and improve its pandemic preparedness.
Every year, in a show of global solidarity and leadership, the Global Fund, through the ‘Global Fund Replenishment’ programme, calls on partners, donors, and countries to support it to raise funds to help save more lives and strengthen health systems across the world.
This year, as part of its 7th Replenishment drive, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is asking donors to donate at least $18 billion to help it save 20 million more lives and prepare countries’ health systems for the next pandemic.
Mrs Senoo said it was against this background that Ghana needed to pledge its commitment as the country stood to benefit more from the Global Fund in the end.
She said the call by the Global Fund had seen many countries and donors making pledges to the Global Fund’s replenishment.
