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AIDS, TB funding grossly inadequate

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Bhuma Shrivastava New Delhi
Last Updated : Feb 06 2013 | 5:51 AM IST
Even as organisations have lined up funds of almost $4 billion each year to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa and South-East Asia, analysts warn the money falls short of the actual requirement by a large margin.
 
According to an Edelweiss study, there is a funding gap of roughly $6 billion per annum for HIV/AIDS and $2.4 billion for TB in Africa and south-east Asian countries, where they claim the most number of victims.
 
While there is $14.9 billion of funds to fight HIV/AIDS in 2006, the burden (including prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care) stands at $8.9 billion.
 
For the 2006-2015 period, an estimated $22.5 billion has been set aside for TB containment, but the burden stands at $47.2 billion. The burden caused by malaria has not been quantified for the 10-year period, though donors and government agencies will spend $32 billion to fight the disease.
 
"Private agencies are already doing a lot. They can just cover some more ground. However, to meet the challenge, the funding, as a whole, will have to be upscaled, and the prime factor driving that should be the local government," said Nimish Mehta, assistant vice-president, Edelweiss.
 
While this highlights the inadequacy of government efforts, it also throws up an opportunity for Indian companies. Indian drug-makers have specialised in anti-infective and anti-retiroviral segments, an area largely ignored by US and European generic drug-makers.
 
With the largest number of US Food & Drug Administration-approved plants outside of US and a cost advantage of 20-30 per cent, Indian companies are positioned to corner $2 billion a year of this opportunity.
 
"About 80 per cent of the 40 million AIDS patients remain untreated, while new forms of TB and malaria are increasingly adding to the menace. HIV-induced TB is also increasing rapidly, adding 8.9 million new cases and causing 1.7 million deaths," stated the report.

 
 

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First Published: Sep 22 2006 | 12:00 AM IST

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