$315mn grant for Aids treatment in Myanmar

DPA/Yangon

A decision yesterday by the international financing organisation The Global Fund to provide $315mn to Myanmar should help the country provide treatment for 85% of their HIV/Aids cases by 2016, officials said.

Nearly $160mn of the money will go towards treatment and prevention of HIV/Aids, with the remainder going to fighting the spread of tuberculosis and malaria. “Myanmar was the only country in the world that was asked to submit proposals on all three diseases,” said UNAIDS Myanmar representative Eamonn Murphy.

The non-profit Global Fund, founded by Kofi Annan and philanthropist billionaires Bill Gates and Jeffrey Sachs, among others, halted its funding to Myanmar in 2005 when the country was still under military rule and the target of economic sanctions by Western democracies.  Funding was resumed in 2011, shortly after an elected government came to power.  Myanmar is ranked among the world’s poorest countries, and in the past was one of the lowest recipients of international aid.

 “This funding is in recognition that Myanmar has not had the opportunity other countries had from the Global Fund and that the fund had pulled out in the past,” Murphy said.

 With its inadequate health services and infrastructure, and years of relative neglect by the aid community, Myanmar faces huge challenges in combatting communicable diseases.