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Why 2019 is A Critical Year in The Fight to End AIDS

February 13, 2019
HIV AIDS

This year, 770,000 will die from a disease that can be treated with just one pill that costs 20 cents per day. This week, 6,000 young girls will be newly infected with a preventable disease. Today, 400 babies will be needlessly born with HIV. As you’re reading this, a teenager will be newly infected with a virus that we’ve been fighting for 30+ years.

These are not headlines of the past, but the story of today. AIDS is still a crisis and it won’t be over unless we act now.

The good news? We know how to fight this — and end it. Once and for all. Say hello to The Global Fund.

The Global Fund was founded in 2002 to accelerate the end of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as epidemics. The Global Fund is an organization made up of partners including governments, civil society and the private sector, and they mobilize and invest nearly $4 billion a year to support life-saving programs in more than 140 countries— programs that are set up and run by the very same people are directly impacted by these diseases. These programs not only combat these diseases, but ultimately revitalize entire communities, strengthen local health systems and improve economies. Bill Gates has called the Global Fund “one of the kindest things people have ever done for one another.”

100% of the money (RED) raises goes to the Global Fund—this has helped save millions of lives and provide critical prevention, treatment and care services. This October, The Global Fund will host their sixth replenishment conference in France, the second-largest donor to the Fund. There, they will ask government and corporate leaders and private donors to come together and help save 16 million lives over the next 3 years by meeting their funding goal of US $14 billion.

It’s an ambitious ask, but US $14 billion for the Global Fund would help…

  • – Get the world back on track to end HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. 
  • – Save 16 million lives between 2021 and 2023, reducing the mortality rate by 52 percent across the three diseases by 2023, relative to 2017 levels.
  • – Reduce the death toll across the three diseases to 1.3 million in 2023, down from 2.5 million in 2017, and from 4.1 million in 2005.
  • – Avert 234 million infections or cases reducing the incidence rate by 42 percent across the three diseases by 2023, relative to 2017 levels.

Ending HIV, tuberculosis and malaria by 2030 is within reach, but not yet fully in our grasp. With only 11 years left, we have no time to waste. We must step up the fight now.