The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, is a public-private partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat AIDS, TB and malaria. Since its creation in 2002, The Global Fund has approved $22.6 billion for funding more than 1,000 programs in 150 countries. The Fund has saved 7.7 million lives by providing AIDS treatment for 3.3 million people, anti-tuberculosis treatment for 8.6 million people and 230 million insecticide-treated nets for the prevention of malaria.

Dr Nalin Mehta, fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, is also the Asia representative at The Global Fund. He elaborates on the organization's present programs and future plans associated with TB in an interview with BioSpectrum.

What are the various TB-related programs and activities being conducted by The Global Fund?
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is an international financing institution that supports programs for the three diseases in 150 countries. It is demand-driven, which means that countries present proposals to The Global Fund according to their needs, so the programs and activities that The Global Fund supports vary in different countries. The Global Fund does not implement programs directly. For TB, The Global Fund supports prevention efforts, case detection and treatment.

Who are your monetary contributors and how do they benefit by investing in your activities?
Funding from donor governments continues to be the largest source of income for The Global Fund. Pledges from the public sector of $28.3 billion represent 95 percent of all pledges made since the fund was created in 2002. Pledges from the private sector and from innovative financing initiatives constitute the remaining five percent ($1.6 billion) of funding pledged.

Financial resources provided will allow The Global Fund to further support countries as they work to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for health. It channels two-thirds of the international financing provided to fight TB and malaria, and a fifth of the international financing against AIDS. Programs supported by The Global Fund have made an increasingly significant contribution to the international targets for key services, such as the provision of lifesaving antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV, TB treatment under DOTS and insecticide-treated nets to prevent the transmission of malaria. Every day, The Global Fund-supported programs save at least 4,400 lives and prevent thousands of new infections. By December 2010, a total of 6.5 million lives had been saved.