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Source: elpais.com

On Tuesday at the UN, Pedro Sánchez announced Spain will contribute 100 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF)

Spain managed to become the fifth global donor in the fight against the three large epidemics that strike human kind: AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The economic crisis interrupted the policy of investment in health. The Government left the Global Fund—a multilateral organism that channels contributions of public and private partners to fight against these three diseases—in 2011; since then, Spain had not given a single euro. On Tuesday, the current president, Pedro Sánchez, announced in New York that the country would be a donor again, contributing 100 million in three years. The president also assured he will provide other 100 million in five years to the UN Joint Fund for the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The inequality gap does not stop growing. Some reports state that 1% of the global population will own two thirds of the world’s total wealth by 2030. Millennials and centennials now have 20% less chances to be part of the middle class, compared to their parents. The concepts of sustainability, justice and human dignity cannot be understood without the ongoing and necessary fight against hunger, poverty and precariousness,” said Sánchez, according to Carlos E. Cué.

“The concepts of sustainability, justice and human dignity cannot be understood without the ongoing and necessary fight against hunger, poverty and precariousness. That is the spirit of the 2030 Agenda, which focuses on the human being and the planet, and sets the foundations for a deep transformation of our societies. The 2030 Agenda also guides the Government’s actions, as the issue of achieving progress requires a progressive response,” added the Government’s president.

Spain will announce its commitment once again on October 10 in Lyon, where the Global Fund will host the Replenishment Conference. It is a meeting the donors (mainly states, but also some philanthropic foundations) hold every three years in order to raise funds and plan investments for the following three-year period. The organization has a goal: 14 billion dollars (more than 12.5 billion euros), which it calculates to be the amount needed to continue moving forward in the fight against these three diseases, which altogether take the lives of almost three million people every year.

According to a report published last week by the Global Fund, the programs in which the Fund has invested in the last two decades (it was created in 2002) have helped save 32 million lives. To achieve this, 18.9 million people received antiretroviral treatment against HIV; 719,000 HIV-positive mothers received medicine to avoid transmitting the virus to their children; 5.3 million people with TB were treated, and 131 million mosquito nets were distributed to protect families from malaria.

“The Results Report of this year clearly shows why we should step up the fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria,” said Peter Sands, Executive Director of the organization. “We have achieved extraordinary progress, yet there are still huge challenges to be overcome before achieving SDG 3, which is putting an end to the epidemics.”

Bill Gates, the main private donor to the Fund (through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), happily welcomes back Spain as a donor. “When committing to contribute money, he is not just making the right thing for the world, but for Spain as well. Diseases do not obey border laws. By strengthening health systems abroad, we reduce the chances for diseases to spread. Plus, we ensure all parents the opportunity to raise healthy, safe and educated children, so it is less likely that they desperately have to travel long distances to find a better life in other places,” he explained when answering a questionnaire sent by EL PAÍS. “President Sánchez and Spain demonstrate an incredible leadership in the global context. Now that more and more countries are deciding to turn inwards and reduce external aid, Spain and other European countries are demonstrating that we cannot step back in our commitment to fight against poverty and diseases,” he added.

Huge steps forward have been made during the first fifteen years of the millennium to end the three epidemics. Mortality rates have been reduced by half thanks to scientific innovation and political commitment. However, the fight appears to have stalled in the last few years. That is the case for malaria, which has been eliminated in several countries, yet it has increased in the most affected ones.

A few weeks ago, a group of scientists (supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) announced that it is possible to eliminate this disease by 2050. Despite skepticism from the World Health Organization regarding the date, Gates feels optimistic: “There are still many obstacles in our path, such as the increasing resistance to drugs and insecticides […], but the innovation potential makes the difference. Different types of new tools against malaria are about to appear.”

Regarding HIV, obstacles are social rather than scientific: even though there is no cure for the disease, there is a treatment that controls it and makes it non-communicable. Peter Sands, Global Fund Director, states on the report that the virus can only be defeated if “human rights barriers”–faced by key populations, thereby increasing their vulnerability to the disease and complicating their access to health services–are destroyed. “Likewise, we could only end HIV if we address structural gender inequalities, which make teenagers and young women in Sub-Saharan Africa twice as likely to be infected as their male peers,” he stated.

The third epidemic, which kills the highest number of people, is tuberculosis, and it faces two serious problems. First, the lack of diagnosis, which causes that over a third of the 10 million people with TB every year do not know they suffer from it; therefore, they do not receive treatment and continue infecting other people. Second, the bacterium is getting more resistant to antibiotics that had been effective for years, which leads to more aggressive treatment that is not always effective.

In this context, it seems like the goal to put an end to the three large epidemics by 2030 is complicated. In a recent interview with this newspaper, Françoise Vanni, Director of External Relations at the Global Fund, said it was possible. “There is a lot of work to do, and this is a crucial moment in which the international community must decide if it really wants to achieve the goals. If we do not raise the 14 billion now, three years from now it will be too late. We know what we have to do; we know we can do it, but we need investment, collaboration and political leadership.”