AHF, CSOs urge China to increase global fund contribution

Aids Health-Care Foundation, (AHF) Nigeria along with Civil Society organisations (CSOs) working on HIV, Tuberculosis, Malaria have called on China to scale-up their contributions to the Global fund. Speaking at a fund the fund press conference held in Abuja AHF Africa’s spokesperson, Oluwakemi Gbadamosi, said HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria can only be addressed by collectives efforts […]

Aids Health-Care Foundation, (AHF) Nigeria along with Civil Society organisations (CSOs) working on HIV, Tuberculosis, Malaria have called on China to scale-up their contributions to the Global fund.

Speaking at a fund the fund press conference held in Abuja AHF Africa’s spokesperson, Oluwakemi Gbadamosi, said HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria can only be addressed by collectives efforts of all nations as seen at the fifth replenishment where $12.9 billion was raised showed that “the overall commitments to curbing the three epidemics remains a high priority for the world.”

She however lamented that not all countries are contributing their fair share to the effort as among the world top five largest economies China in the second place has pledged only $18 million to the Global fund while UK the fifth largest economy and Japan the third largest has pledged $171 million and $800 million respectively.

“Our request is simple, China do the right thing by pledging $1 billion dollars to the Global fund” Oluwakemi said.

She called on the global fund secretariat to open an ongoing high-level dialogue with the government of China, as these funds are used to save millions of lives across the globe.

The Executive Secretary for Civil Society for HIV/AIDs in Nigeria (CISHAN), Walter Ugwuocha speaking on the National response on HIV/AIDs in Nigeria said that the country largely depends on international donors’ assistance to be able to respond to HIV/AIDs issues.  

He said Nigeria has about 859,000 people living with HIV/AIDs on treatments and the US Government alone funds approximately 86 per cent of these numbers.

Walter said the CSOs are asking the government to increase its domestic fund by at least 50 per cent to reduce over dependency and also measures up to international donors  because “the domestic funding drive currently is about 25 per cent and the remaining 75 per cent comes from international communities.”

He also called on the government to put measures in place for the domestic production of antiretroviral drugs as a large chunk of the donations received are used to procures these drugs outside the country.