AUSAID increases assistance to Global AIDS Fund

Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer has announced his country's continued support of the Global AIDS Fund. In a statement that coincided with a high-level UN HIV/AIDS meeting in New York this week, Downer pledged US $15 million towards the Fund's international anti-AIDS efforts. The Global Fund, which works to attract and allocate resources, has been pulling out all the stops to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in hard-hit parts of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa. Downer was hopeful that the new pledge would also help the Fund extend its activities to the Asia-Pacific region, as worrying signs of an "African-style epidemic" were beginning to emerge in Papua New Guinea.