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US global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias earlier this week gave developed countries a September extension to contribute US $243 million to fulfil their pledges to the Global AIDS Fund.
Donor countries were expected to contribute a total of $1.11 billion by 31 July, when the US would make available its pledged amount of $547 million. But the fund was $243 million short of the $1.11 billion by the deadline, and the US would now only bring $427 million of the original $547 to the table as its proportional contribution, leaving the Global AIDS Fund short of $120 million.
Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said, "This is not a matter of arithmetic - this is a matter of life and death ... I would appeal to ... [Mr Tobias] to exercise the flexibility to the end of the year rather than the end of September".
AIDS activists said the Fund's shortfall would jeopardise efforts to stem the growing epidemic in developing countries.
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