The Global Fund is continuing to experience solid growth in terms of services provided and the numbers of people reached through programmes supported by the Fund, even as reduced estimates of available resources are forcing the Fund to tighten its belt.

The Global Fund released estimates of the full year numbers for 2011 in time for World AIDS Day on 1 December 2011. The number of people who received antiretroviral treatment (ART) in 2011 was 3.3 million, an increase of 10% compared to the 3.0 million people who received ART in 2010. The number of mothers treated to prevent them from transmitting HIV to their babies rose to 1.3 million in 2011, from 1.0 million in 2010, up 30%. The number of HIV testing and counselling sessions rose 27% to 190 million in 2011, compared to 150 million in 2010.

The number of tuberculosis cases detected and treated rose to 8.6 million in 2011 from 7.7 million in 2010, an increase of 12%.

The numbers for malaria were also up sharply:

• 70 million bed nets were distributed in 2011, an increase of 43% over 2010;
• indoor residual spraying was carried out in 43 million homes in 2011, an increase of more than one-third over 2010; and
• the number of malaria cases treated with effective anti-malaria drugs also jumped by more than a third, to 230 million in 2011 from 170 million in 2010.

The Global Fund announced in November 2011 that because of a sharply deteriorating economic situation, which is placing severe pressure on the budgets of donor countries, the Fund will not be in a position to finance new grants before the end of 2013. The Global Fund's Executive Director, Professor Michel Kazatchkine, appealed to donors to increase funding, saying that while the latest results showed that programmes supported by the Global Fund were delivering remarkable results, far more could be achieved with additional resources. "The poor and the vulnerable must not be made to pay the price for the global financial crisis," Kazatchkine said.

Note: As indicated above, these accomplishments are attributable to programmes that the Global Fund has supported. This does not mean that the Global Fund alone can take credit for this; many of these programmes have also been supported by national governments and other donors. Information for this article was taken from a Global Fund press release.