UNITAID grants of US$120m will provide access to childhood treatments
Including HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis
Global health initiative UNITAID has committed up to US$120m in grants to allow children in developing countries to access better and more affordable medicines for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (TB).
Among these grants up to US$34m is committed to the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) to accelerate the global adoption of injectable artesunate, a treatment for the 8 million annual cases of severe malaria, occurring mostly in under fives in sub-Saharan Africa.
Up to US$ 17.3m will go to the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) to make child-adapted paediatric HIV treatments available.
In addition, the TB Alliance will receive up to US$16.7m to support the production of appropriate paediatric TB medicine formulations.
As well as these main funds, UNITAID has approved four ‘market entry’ grants to help manufacturers of ‘point-of-care’ HIV diagnostic machines in the final stages of development get over the hurdles of making their products available to those in need.
For too long now, the global health community has done too little to meet the special needs of children living with these diseases in poor countries
‘For too long now, the global health community has done too little to meet the special needs of children living with these diseases in poor countries,’ said Dr Philippe Douste-Blazy, chairman of the UNITAID executive board. ‘UNITAID’s new investments will enable the production of adapted treatments and help put these diseases back on the global agenda.’
All of these new grants build on UNITAID’s efforts over the last six years to scale-up medicines and diagnostics for HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. The UNITAID executive board also approved up to US$8m to continue one such existing project which ensures that procurement of paediatric HIV medicines will continue into 2013/14. A positive decision regarding the request from the Global Fund for an extension of funding of the Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria (AMFm) is expected in January. Finally, the executive board also confirmed its commitment to supporting the WHO Prequalification of Medicines Programme on a multi-year basis.