Lusaka – The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today signed an agreement with Churches Health Association of Zambia for US$102 million to further support the national HIV response in Zambia.
Activities implemented by this grant will focus on prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV, promoting male circumcision, expanding and sustaining HIV treatment, reducing new infections, and maintaining a high coverage of impact mitigation. The grant will also strengthen counselling and testing and community-based HIV treatment adherence.
“The grant that we are signing today marks a great milestone for the people of Zambia and CHAZ is delighted to be part of this achievement,” said Dr. Joop Jansen, Board of the Chair of CHAZ. “This close collaboration and leadership is commendable, and I wish to encourage all partners to continue such close relations to ensure we begin to see the end of AIDS in Zambia”.
And guest speaker at the signing ceremony and Zambia’s Minister of Health Dr Joseph Kasonde said, “The Global Fund has been one of the major funders of the national response in Zambia and has contributed immensely to the functioning of the Zambian health system.” “The importance and significance of the occasion of this grant signing cannot be over-emphasized,” he added.
Mark Edington, Head of Grant Management at the Global Fund was also present during the ceremony: “ This grant will invest in high impact interventions that will help Zambia reach universal access of HIV treatment”.
The grant is a consolidation of four Global Fund HIV grants, under the new single stream of funding mechanism, which will allow the country to better coordinate and implement the programs, in coordination with the Ministry of Health and technical and funding partners in Zambia.
The grant will provide financing until December 2014 and will allow for:
· Counselling and testing of 404,00 people;
· Antiretroviral treatment for 77,000 adults (17% of national need);
· Antiretroviral drugs for 16,000 HIV-positive pregnant women to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission (joint target with other donors);
· Community level mobilisation of 4,600 HIV treatment adherence support workers;
· 84,000 male circumcisions;
· Support to 70,500 orphans and vulnerable children.
CHAZ is the second biggest health provider in Zambia through church health run facilities and works hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Health implementing programs throughout Zambia including in hard-to-reach rural sites.
Since its inception, the Global Fund has approved US$662 million to grants in Zambia for the three diseases and over US$428 million has been disbursed for program implementation.
