Global challenge

Wire service AFP reports that “Governments, philanthropists and private firms were on course this week to reach a target of $14 billion for a plan to save 16 million lives in the global fight against the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.”

The firm has French President Emmanuel Macron as talking head.

“The money was promised at a replenishment meeting in Lyon, France, of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, at which Macron engaged in intense diplomacy to exhort countries to step up donations.”

“These are not simply numbers, they are lives,” the French leader told delegates.

“The funds that are being asked of us are not… charity. It is a decision to invest against injustice,” he added, highlighting the disproportionate rate of infection and deaths from the three diseases in poor countries and among women and girls.

The fund had asked for $14 billion, a sum it says will save 16 million lives between 2021 and 2023.

Macron said a total of $13.92 billion was pledged after he spent the morning contacting heads of state and government — from the emir of Qatar to the Armenian premier — in a bid to rally more funds.

That included an additional $60 million made available by France, an amount Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates then matched.

Macron then vowed to gather another $100 million in pledges by December to reach the target, notably urging a bigger contribution from Japan.

The fund’s chief executive Peter Sands said this meant a total of $14.02 billion had effectively been pledged, including the additional $100 million promised by Macron.

“We are targeting to halve by 2023 the annual death toll from these three epidemics and we are targeting to avert some 234 million infections,” Sands said.

But non-government organizations insist that that even more is needed — as much as $18 billion, they say.

Several delegates had expressed doubts that such a large sum could be generated as the focus switches away from diseases largely affecting poor countries to other global problems.

“What we want to do is to make AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria disappear from the face of the Earth,” Macron told delegates.

He complained that the resolve to fight the deadly trio has weakened in rich countries because fewer of their own are dying and treatment, particularly for HIV, is now readily available.

According to the UN’s World Health Organization, 770,000 people died of HIV-related causes last year, with 1.7 million new infections.

Tuberculosis, a high risk for HIV-positive people, claimed some 1.7 million lives in 2017, and malaria more than 430,000.

The two-day meeting in Lyon was the sixth to replenish the fund since it was set up in 2002, with prominent supporters Gates and U2 lead singer Bono in attendance alongside a number of African heads of state.

“Where you live should not decide whether you live,” the singer told delegates. “For 14 million people with AIDS who can’t get the medication to save their lives, this is still an emergency.”

The United States is the number one donor with a $4.68 billion contribution already voted by Congress, and France’s total pledge amounts to $1.43 billion.

The Philippines is among the countries with the fastest rising number of AIDS cases in recent years.

It could not fight the disease on its own, though. It would need advice and guidance from foreign experts, as well as developments in various researches to find a cure to the dreaded disease.

Government has been on top of educating teenagers and adults on the dangers of unprotected sex, the first and primary reason for the transfer of HIV/AIDS.

But the world is not yet winning this battle.

Lyon could provide the spark to a global victory against it. Let us hope the Philippines could follow the trend and help in the eradication of AIDS from our vocabulary.