Global Fund allots 18 million euro to Bulgaria to combat HIV and AIDS
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria or simply The Global Fund, has given Bulgaria nearly 18 million euro to help the country combat and curtail its domestic AIDS problem over the course of the next three years, Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) said.
The 18 million euro will facilitate the effort to curtail the spread of the disease and improve the quality of life of citizens in the country who have contracted HIV.
AIDS awareness offices have been set up nationwide in Bulgaria sponsored by the Global Fund, which consisted in total of 10 such clinics, 19 cabinets for anonymous and free testing and counselling, as well as centres set up in Roma communities across Bulgaria. Furthermore, 12 mobile medical offices have also been funded from the same subsidy.
The Fund was established in January 2002. It aimed to generate a substantial amount of financial resources to combat those pandemics.
According to the Fund's official website, as of June 2007, 1.9 million lives have been saved thanks to efforts in 136 countries supported by the Global Fund. More than 20 per cent of all finances for combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis was generated by the fund.
The genesis of the Global Fund was an article published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, by Harvard academics Amir Attaran and Jeffrey Sachs. In January 2001 they called for foreign aid budgets for HIV/AIDS to be increased several times, compared to those which were available tothe researchers in the 1990s.
Finally, the decision to establish the new funding scheme was implemented by international leaders at the 2001 G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, at the insistence of United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan. The first Secretariat was established in January, 2002, and Richard Feachem was appointed as the fund's first executive director in July the same year.
The Global Fund is a public-private partnership, but is often considered part of the United Nations, in part because the World Health Organization (WHO) provides many administrative services to the Global Fund secretariat and is also based in Geneva, Switzerland.
As recently as January 2009 the Global Fund became an administratively autonomous organisation, when it terminated its administrative services agreement with the WHO.
The 18 million euro will facilitate the effort to curtail the spread of the disease and improve the quality of life of citizens in the country who have contracted HIV.
AIDS awareness offices have been set up nationwide in Bulgaria sponsored by the Global Fund, which consisted in total of 10 such clinics, 19 cabinets for anonymous and free testing and counselling, as well as centres set up in Roma communities across Bulgaria. Furthermore, 12 mobile medical offices have also been funded from the same subsidy.
The Fund was established in January 2002. It aimed to generate a substantial amount of financial resources to combat those pandemics.
According to the Fund's official website, as of June 2007, 1.9 million lives have been saved thanks to efforts in 136 countries supported by the Global Fund. More than 20 per cent of all finances for combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis was generated by the fund.
The genesis of the Global Fund was an article published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, by Harvard academics Amir Attaran and Jeffrey Sachs. In January 2001 they called for foreign aid budgets for HIV/AIDS to be increased several times, compared to those which were available tothe researchers in the 1990s.
Finally, the decision to establish the new funding scheme was implemented by international leaders at the 2001 G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, at the insistence of United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan. The first Secretariat was established in January, 2002, and Richard Feachem was appointed as the fund's first executive director in July the same year.
The Global Fund is a public-private partnership, but is often considered part of the United Nations, in part because the World Health Organization (WHO) provides many administrative services to the Global Fund secretariat and is also based in Geneva, Switzerland.
As recently as January 2009 the Global Fund became an administratively autonomous organisation, when it terminated its administrative services agreement with the WHO.