The Global Fund and Unitaid intensify their collaboration to advance equitable access to health products
June 27, 2024
GENEVA – The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund) and Unitaid have signed a new collaboration framework to advance equitable access to health products and innovations high-quality and affordable services in low- and middle-income countries over the next three years.
“For AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria to become a thing of the past, all people must have free and equitable access to prevention, testing and treatment,” said Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund. The consolidation of the partnership with Unitaid places us in a better position to meet the challenges linked to the quality, supply, distribution and price of health products, and to offer everyone products of the quality is guaranteed. Together, we will continue to build climate-resilient health systems, drive health innovation and encourage regional manufacturing, paving the way towards a world free of these three diseases. »
“Faced with growing global inequalities, health partners are scrambling to find ways to make the most of donor funds to reach as many people as possible,” said Philippe Duneton, Executive Director of Unitaid . For almost twenty years, the Global Fund and Unitaid have been proof that great things can be achieved by working together. Through this new agreement, we commit to increasing our efforts to help countries introduce innovative and cost-effective health products at scale, strengthen regional manufacturing and sourcing, and implement climate-smart health solutions. . »
The Global Fund and Unitaid partnership is an integral part of the global health architecture. Each organization plays a strategic and complementary role in influencing global markets for HIV, TB and malaria products. Unitaid invests up front to accelerate the development of innovative, cost-effective health products, and the Global Fund takes over to scale up their production and distribution. This complementarity helps achieve HIV, TB and malaria targets faster, and increases returns on investment. [ télécharger en English ] – which allows the money saved to be invested elsewhere, to save even more lives.
Under the new agreement, the Global Fund and Unitaid will intensify their collaboration to identify promising health products in development and accelerate their approval, enter into agreements with suppliers to guarantee supplies and affordable price for products when they are brought to market, and to help countries introduce new products and create demand.
For tuberculosis, the Global Fund and Unitaid will join forces to help countries prepare for large-scale implementation of new diagnostics. This will include developing demand generation strategies and producing demand projections for new diagnostic categories that will inform potential market-sharing interventions by Unitaid, the Global Fund and other partners.
In terms of malaria, the growing threat of resistance to antimalarial drugs in sub-Saharan Africa is the priority of both organizations. In addition to addressing the contributing factors of resistance, partners encourage countries to adopt proactive and preventative strategies, such as multiple first-line treatments and the use of diverse antimalarials to mitigate drug selection pressure. The partners will continue their joint investments in next-generation double-action insecticide-treated bed nets, a successful initiative that has already prevented some 13 million cases of malaria and more than 24,000 deaths in 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Unitaid and the Global Fund will continue their joint market orientation interventions targeting HIV, co-infections and priority comorbidities. This will include accelerating access to long-acting HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis products, such as the dapivirine vaginal ring and injectable cabotegravir, as well as other products nearing market availability. .
To learn more about our partnership, please see our report Unitaid and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria [ télécharger en English | Français ] .
