Emerging giants urged to fund war on killer diseases

(Sebastian Kaulitzki)

Emerging nations should step up and help fund the battle against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the head of the Global Fund to combat the three killer diseases said Thursday.

"As we moved to G8 to G20 in global governance shouldn't emerging countries also participate in global solidarity?" Michel Kazatchkine asked.

The Group of Eight developed nations contribute some 85 percent of donations to the fund at the moment, he noted.

While acknowledging that "China, Brazil and India should remain net beneficiaries the Global Fund," Kazatchkine said that "at the same time, they have to be contributors".

Kazatchine revealed that he had recently met the three emerging giants' representatives in order to solicit their participation.

Overall, the fund needs 17 billion dollars (12.9 billion euros) in the next three years in order to meet UN targets on cutting the occurrences of these diseases.

In the last three years, growing distributions of mosquito nets and medication financed by the fund have helped to bring down malaria mortality rate from 70 percent to 50 percent in the 10 African countries most affected by the diseases.

"If the efforts continue at the same pace, by 2015, we will be able to eliminate HIV transmission from mother to child and we would have saved millions of lives," said Kazatchkine.