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AFRICA: AIDS fund running dry, Mandela warns

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 27 September (PLUSNEWS) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela has criticised international donors for contributing only half the money required for 2006 and 2007 by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

There is growing concern that progress made by the Fund will stall. "Once the current spirit of global commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS is lost it will never be restored," Mandela wrote in an opinion piece for The Times newspaper in the UK on Tuesday.

Mandela was quoted as saying, "It is a crying shame, then, that the most significant instrument to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic - the Global Fund, created by developed and developing countries together - is battling to secure the resources it needs to sustain its operations."

The Global Fund was set up by the world's richest governments at the 2001 Group of Eight economic summit in Genoa, Italy, where they pledged to step up funding to fight HIV/AIDS and other global epidemics.

[ENDS]

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