Pakistan gets vital TB grant worth $26m: The News

By Shahina Maqbool
Islamabad

Pakistan has yet again won a vital grant worth $26 million for the control of Tuberculosis, with a special acknowledgement for the country’s health management on having achieved 100 per cent TB DOTS coverage and effective implementation of TB control strategies.

Executive Director of The Global Fund, Michel Kazatchkine and Pakistan’s Health Secretary Khushnood Akhtar Lashari signed two grant agreements for securing high-quality anti-TB drugs and strengthening of the TB Drug Management System in Pakistan through public-private partnership, in Geneva. A major portion of the grant will be utilised to secure 50 per cent of the total country need for anti-TB drugs through the Global Drug Facility, informed Dr. Noor Baloch, national manager of the TB Control Programme.

Agreements worth $8.9 million have been signed for phase-1 of the grant, covering the initial two years starting from July 2009, he added.

This is the fourth time that Pakistan has won a strictly performance-based global fund grant for TB from amongst numerous other competitors. This is a unique public-private partnership and both the National TB Control Programme and Greenstar Social Marketing Pakistan will be implementing this recent grant, as Principal Recipients.

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) is a performance-based funding mechanism established in 2002 to provide significant amounts of new resources to allow developing countries to quickly scale up treatment and prevention services aimed at stemming the spread of the diseases.

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