The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has achieved an extraordinary feat that has the power to revolutionize the history of world health since its own inception in 2002, and which the fund notes that 70 million lives have already been saved since its start, but of this extraordinary success is an ominous echo of likely reverse; as the centuries of gains ever made in the battles against the most deadly contagious diseases in the world are now being retracted by crisis in funding and geopolitical turmoil.
Record achievement is an eye-opener for unmatched disease reduction
According to an annual Results Report released by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, the organization has saved 70 million lives since it began back in 2002, according to an annual Results Report that was released on Wednesday. The report also puts into the spotlight key gains made by the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and notes that the decades of hard-earned achievements can easily be reversed unless renewed commitment and investment are undertaken.
With country leadership providing momentum, the Global Fund partnership has impacted communities and front-line health workers, reducing the combined death rate from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria by 63 percent and also reducing the combined incidence rate by 42 percent in less than a quarter century, said the report.
Unprecedented coverage of the treatment of three diseases
The official press release said: Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund, said: This shows that with the right instruments we could curve the planetary health curve toward a more sustainable event, with massive effort and a long-term commitment. A UN project became the basis of establishing the organization as a non-profit organization to fund these three diseases in the world.
By 2024, 88 percent of the global population with HIV served by the Global Fund had been made aware of their status and 79 percent of them were on antiretroviral medication, and 74 percent of them had a suppressed viral load. It is the topmost in the history of all these indicators. Pre-exposure prophylaxis has evolved into a larger trend in preventing HIV, and 1.4 million people are considered to be on PrEP in 2024, which is an increase of 325 percent since 2023.
Mortality rate of AIDS in 2002 was reduced by 82 percent and HIV incidence rate by 73 percent in countries listed in the Global Fund. This is true in the case of tuberculosis, where it is covered at the highest ever 75 percent in 2023, and 45 percent in 2010.
There is a crisis zone in the maintenance of services in response to emergencies
But in a dynamic geopolitical world, nothing can afford to be by half, said Sands. More precisely, he stated that the global medical fraternity ought to act fast to reduce the process of fragmentation, clear duplication, and to streamline the process to enable countries to work with us. The eighth replenishment of the Global Fund is necessary to keep the world on track to end these killer diseases.
The risk of a severe outbreak of conflict and insecurity continued to disturb the world’s development in 2024, with the brittle environments that host 16 percent of the global population, adding a two-thirds burden of nearly two-thirds of the world’s malaria cases, a quarter of tuberculosis cases, and 17 percent of new HIV infection cases in 2024.
The remarkable outcome of the Global Fund that has saved 70 million lives confirms that long-term international cooperation in combating life-threatening diseases is effective. However, the drastic threat expressed by the organization about potential backslides works to remind us of the criticality of further investments and efforts in making sure that there will be no catastrophic backlash that will annihilate the decades of gains and will bring the lives of millions of people worldwide to shambles.