GHANA BENEFITS FROM FUND TO FIGHT AIDS, MALARIA (PAGE 47, DEC 10)

LAST Tuesday Ghana became a beneficiary of a $400 million grant from Global Fund to fight the spread of HIV and AIDS, Tuberclosis (TB) and malaria over the next five years.
An agreement which rolled out the phase one of the grant, dubbed “Round Eight”, was signed between Global Fund and the Ministry of Health in Accra.
The Minister of Health, Dr Benjamin Kunbour, initialled for the ministry, while Mr Mark Willis, Representative of Global Fund, also signed for the fund.
Six agencies to benefit from the grant are the Ministry of Health, Ghana AIDS Commission, Ghana Health Service (GHS), Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), Adventist Development Relief Agency (ADRA) and Anglogold Ashanti.
Global Fund was established by the United Nations in 2001, and supported by the G-8 of industrialised countries to provide substantial resources to fight malaria, TB, HIV and AIDS.
The Minister of Health said the grant was very significant in the face of the enormous financial challenges in the health sector.
He underscored the need for the beneficiary institutions to ensure judicious and effective use of the grants.
Dr Kunbour said Ghana, as a developing country, had to deal with a very high burden of diseases, explaining that availability of financial resources to fight the upsurge of the diseases was a huge relief for the country.
He mentioned, for example, that the burden of malaria alone cost the nation more than US$730 million annually.
He said most developing countries were at the risk of missing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets because of the overwhelming burden of those diseases which were now endemic in developing countries.
The Director of Anglogold Ashanti Malaria Control Programme, Mr Steve Knowles, said a malaria control programme was the best example of a sustainable corporate social responsibility programme for a company operating in a malaria-endemic area.
He said Anglogold Ashanti believed local community involvement and development is the key issue to sustainable operations.
He said the company would embark on an indoor residual spraying (IRS) in 40 districts of the country for a period of five years, which would help in the provision of 3,800 jobs in four years.