GNA – Nii Nortery Hanson Nortey, Vice Chairman of the Country Coordinating Mechanism of Global Fund, Ghana, says the Fund has contributed US$1.
2 billion to improve health systems in Ghana in the last 20 years.
He said the Global Fund had provided resources such as money, medicines, equipment and vehicles to help fight Malaria, Tuberculosis and AIDs in Ghana and globally.
“In Ghana, we have had an improvement in TB diagnosis, previously we used microscopes in TB diagnosis, which took us over six hours to do TB diagnosis, now because of molecular technology, the gene-xpert machine is used to diagnose TB in less than two hours,” he said.
Created in 2002, the Global Fund has supported 155 countries and regional grants as of June 2021 to fight HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria with more than $50 billion, making it one of the largest funders of global health.
In Ghana, the Fund has supported the fight against the three diseases, while helping to strengthen health systems across the 155 countries.
The Global Fund mobilizes and invests more than $4 billion a year to support programmes run by local experts in more than 100 countries.
The Fund had been one of the key supporters in the fight against malaria in the country, she added and mentioned support in areas such as indoor residual spraying in three regions, intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women, the distribution of insecticide-treated nets and the management of malaria in hospitals.
Through its work, the Fund is said to have saved 44 million lives and provided prevention, treatment and care services to hundreds of millions of people.
GNA