Global Fund still short on money

Despite welcome new long-term pledges by the world's richest countries, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria says it needs at least US $3 billion more. The fund said it had only US $400 million left to pay for more than 200 new proposals received from 85 countries for programmes in health care, research and prevention. "Promises of US $1.2 billion between now and 2008 at the Group of Eight (G-8) summit last week cover only 23 percent of the needs for 2003 and 2004," the Fund said in a recent statement. Many more proposals were expected for two further rounds of grants in 2004. A group of NGOs and health groups last month started a "Fund the Fund" campaign to urge rich countries to meet the fund's needs.