JOHANNESBURG (MCT) — Activists marked World Aids Day on Thursday with warnings that severe shortfalls in global AIDS funding by donors would cost many lives, particularly in hard-hit southern Africa.
After scientific research this year concluded that aggressive treatment of HIV from an early stage with anti-retroviral medications could save lives, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced last week it was canceling funding for new programs until 2014 because it had not received adequate donations.
The organization is the biggest fund offering grants to fight the diseases and provides anti-retroviral medication for about half the people in sub-Saharan Africa taking the drugs.
Activists said southern Africa, the area with the highest concentration of people living with HIV, would be the hardest hit. The Global Fund has dispersed $2.1 billion to fight AIDS in the region since it began work a decade ago.
