This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Foreign aid programs effective, should be better funded
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, have had a significant impact on the global battle against infectious diseases. Together, they have committed more than $90 billion to the cause as of 2015, according to the organizations. However, funding for PEPFAR has been on the decline for several years.
Infectious Disease News spoke with Editorial Board member David Cohn, MD, interim chief of infectious diseases at Denver Health and professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the University of Colorado Denver, about the importance of such foreign aid programs and the need to keep them well-funded.
I favor greater public and private investment in programs like PEPFAR and the Global Fund. Having seen what it has done from my work in tuberculosis and HIV medicine, PEPFAR is nothing short of extraordinary in terms of the number of lives saved and the improvement in the health of HIV-infected persons all over the world. In addition, non-HIV infected populations have benefited because of the spinoffs in improving health care systems in developing countries that have occurred as a result of PEPFAR. I have seen it firsthand from being involved on the ground floor when training in sub-Saharan Africa with organizations such as the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs and the Medical Education Partnership Initiative. Similarly, based on the work that I have done with WHO, I have had a chance to see how much the Global Fund has contributed to advances in the control of TB, malaria and HIV.
That said, we cannot be complacent. PEPFAR is undergoing cutbacks right now and, of course, there is great concern as to what that is going to mean. These programs need to be maintained and expanded with contributions from the recipient countries themselves in addition to aid from the richer countries of the world, but they have been nothing short of fantastic.
Disclosure: Cohn reports no relevant financial disclosures.