With the new knowledge that providing antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to people living with HIV “contribut[es] to a sharp slowdown in the spread of the virus,” “scaling up treatment now may prove to be the least expensive option if we want to bring this deadly pandemic, which still infects 1.8 million people every year, under control,” Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria writes in the Guardian’s “Poverty Matters Blog.”  

Kazatchkine notes that 6.5 million people are on ARV treatment because of the efforts of the Global Fund and PEPFAR. He writes, “The international community in June set itself the ambitious target of putting another nine million people on treatment by 2015, which would take the total receiving HIV treatment to 15 million. Raising the funding to meet the ’15 by 15’ goal is going to be very challenging at a time when the world is facing the biggest economic crisis since the great depression of the 1930s. … Some of our donors, including the U.S., France, Norway and Australia, have committed to increase their financial contributions to the Global Fund over the next three years. We hope that more countries follow their example” (8/5).