Living with HIV in the Philippines: My Letter to The Global Fund

There are lots of speculations about the Global Fund assistance to the Philippines with their existing HIV programs. It has been spreading around for quite sometime now that the GL will stop all its funding until December 2012 this year and from the last I heard from all my doctors and the staff of my HIV treatment hub, the Global Fund is indeed stopping and that the OHAT package of PhilHealth will take care of everything for all of us pozzies. I mentioned it yesterday again in one of my blog entries and one of my blog readers said that the Global Fund won't end this year. I got more confused. It was then that Tag suggested that I should write directly to the Global Fund because they are the only one that can give the factual answer that we are all seeking for.

Here is the letter and The Global Fund's reply:

MY OPEN LETTER TO THE GLOBAL FUND

Greetings!

I am one of the thousands of Filipinos who have been helped by your organization. The different government treatment hubs in my country are providing us with free doctors consultations, free lab testing including the very expensive CD4 test, free prophylaxis for opportunistic infections and free ARV's. I am one of those who had a very low CD4 count when I started treatment last year and because of the Global Fund, my CD4 has jumped up to about 700% in just a few months. Because of this I am so grateful to your organization for you have given me a second life and very thankful for what you have given all my Filipino brother and sisters who are living with HIV/AIDS. In behalf of my countrymen, thank you so much.

The reason why I am writing is to ask your kind organization this question: will your organization still continue its funding programs for the Philippines especially programs for HIV treatment? There are a lot of speculations from my fellow filipinos that the Global Fund will stop funding the programs for HIV in the Philippines and everything will end this December 2012. Even our good doctors can't answer the question directly. Everything is speculative and this scares a lot of us especially those who really can't afford the treatment.

I hope, somehow your good organization can enlighten me with this.

Once again, thank you so much.

Pozzie Pinoy

GLOBAL FUND’S REPLY

Dear Mr Pinoy,

Thank you very much for your kind message, and for your support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

I appreciate your bringing your concerns to our attention. It is true that there has been a lot of unclear and even conflicting information about the Global Fund circulating lately.

First, let me assure that the Philippines will continue to receive funding after December 2012.

Please allow me to explain – and perhaps I can ask you to share this information with your contacts. The Global Fund awards grants to countries through what we call “funding rounds”. In mid 2011, the Board of the Global Fund decided to launch Round 11, on the basis that there was sufficient projected funding to approve new programs. However, by November 2011 a number of things had changed, including some donors making their contributions later than planned, changes in exchange rates, etc – so much so that our financial projections showed that there would not be enough money to fully support new programs. (This, by the way, does not affect existing grants; everything approved up to and including Round 10 continues to be fully funded). The Board thus decided to cancel Round 11. This was very difficult, as a number of countries – including the Philippines – had counted on new grants being approved in Round 11 in order to continue and scale up their existing programs. But we feel strongly that it would be wrong to approve grants for funding if we were not absolutely certain that the money would be available – why make promises you can’t keep?

At the time that the Board cancelled Round 11, they anticipated that the next opportunity for countries to apply for new grants would not be until late 2013/early 2014. Knowing that a significant number of countries would see their grants come to an end before 2014, the Board of the Global Fund established what we call the “Transitional Funding Mechanism”. This is not funding for new programs – this is money which will enable countries to continue lifesaving treatment under existing programs until they can apply for new funding in the next funding opportunity, i.e. until 2014.

The Philippines has one existing grant for HIV (and, by the way, you can find all the information on this grant available on the Philippines page of our website), which is coming to the end of its five-year period and is scheduled to close at the end of this year. However, I can share with you that the Philippines has been approved for funding through the Transitional Funding Mechanism. The approval of this funding and the notification to country were made only in the last week or so, so it is entirely possible that the implementers have not yet had the time to fully share this information.

This additional funding will provide support for essential services such as ARV therapy for eligible patients and outreach work among most-at-risk populations.

And although you are no doubt aware of this, PhilHealth also provides an HIV/AIDS treatment package available to any member.

I hope that this information is helpful, and feel free to contact us again should you have any additional questions.

Best of health,

Beatrice Bernescut

Communications

Global Fund

Please click the link below:
Global Fund: The Philippines

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