|PIC1|New programmes scheduled for 2006 and 2007 are being threatened by the serious financial shortfall facing the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

On World AIDS Day 2005 Christian Aid is appealing to the world’s richest countries to deliver on promises made to make access to treatment universally accessible by 2010.

At a donor conference in London in September this year, the UN called on wealthy nations to donate US$7.1billion to cover the expected costs of programmes for the coming two years.

Only $3.5billion was put forward meaning there is currently no money for the programmes the Fund, set up by the UN to fight the world three most devastating diseases, was hoping to run in 2006 and 2007.

The shortfall in pledges adds to the US$300million funding gap needed to complete the Fund’s last round of grants.

“This is a shocking indictment of the rich countries’ commitment to the fight against HIV,’ said Dr Rachel Baggaley, head of the HIV Unit at Christian Aid. ‘In July we had grand statements from the G8 summit which committed them to universal HIV treatment by 2010.

|QUOTE|“There is no way we are going to even begin to achieve this if the leaders of the richest countries do not deliver on their much trumpeted promises,” said Dr Baggaley.

She warned: “We are not going to make any headway in alleviating poverty if we do not tackle HIV at the same time. So many countries are being decimated by HIV. More than three million people died of HIV last year and there were nearly 2.5 million new infections in sub-Saharan Africa alone.“

The Fund has already proved vital in providing help for more than 220,000 people with antiretroviral drugs, 600,000 people with TB treatment, |TOP| more than one million people with malaria treatment and more than three million insecticide-treated mosquito nets, since it was created in 2001.

According to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on creating the Fund, around US$7 – 10billion would be needed each year to effectively combat HIV alone.

With around 40 million people now living with HIV, UNAIDS predicts that 55 per cent of new infections forecast in the sub-Saharan Africa by 2020 could be prevented if treatment and prevention were properly funded.