India needs to help fight diseases

Emerging economies such as India, China and Brazil need to share responsibility to help the world become free of disease, said Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.

Emerging economies such as India, China and Brazil need to share responsibility to help the world become free of disease, said Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.

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With global support to fight infectious diseases plateauing from economic crisis-hit donor countries, the Global Fund also wants India's assistance to fight the three leading killer diseases of the world. Two million people have died of AIDS, 1.8 million people of tuberculosis and 1 million of malaria in 2008 worldwide. The US 20.9-billion Global Fund has committed $1 billion to India to fight these diseases since 2002.

After meeting high-ranking leaders in Brazil and China, Kazatchkine arrived in Delhi on Tuesday on visit to request support — both political and financial — for the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. "Support from countries that have benefited will help donor nations see how funding will help meet the millennium development goals. Projects funded by the Global Fund have saved 6 million lives since it was set up in 2002," Kazatchkine told HT.

Since the inception of the Global Fund in 2002, 50 countries have pledged $20.9 billion.