Global Fund pledges $52m to MoPH against AIDS, TB

KABUL (MoPH) to help it fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria diseases.

An agreement to this effect was signed between Deputy Public Health Minister Dr. Ahmad Jan Naim and development program director at the United Nations Development Program.

Naim said the aid would help strengthen measures for prevention of malaria in different ways including distribution of mosquito nets.

He said MoPH was committed to implementing the program in cooperation with international partners.

Developing innovative and responsive strategies for controlling tuberculosis and improving the health system was another aim of the assistance, Naim said.

He said deaths from TB would decrease by 50 percent by controlling the disease and deaths from AIDS, malaria, pregnancy diseases would also reduce by improving the health system in Afghanistan until 2021.

Part of this donation would go to medicines to cure HIV/AIDS virus for more than 40,000 infected people, he added.

Providing more than four million mosquito nets and diagnosing 700,000 malaria cases as well as treating 158,000 TB patients was part of the program, Naim said.

Dr. Enkhjin Bavuu, senior Global Fund manager for Afghanistan, said: “The Global Fund is happy to spend its aid for fighting AIDS, TB and malaria diseases in Afghanistan through MoPH, UNDP and other organs.

The UNDP has provided $178,800,000 million in aid to Afghanistan during the past 10 years.

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