AIDS, malaria and TB greatest threats to humans

AIDS, malaria and TB greatest threats to human security, official says at UN

There is no greater threat to individual human security than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, a senior official of the Global Fund set up to help combat those illnesses said today at a briefing at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Speaking at a briefing in conjunction with the UN's annual conference for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Kingsley Moghalu, Director of Resource Mobilization and Global Partnership for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said the Fund is the world's best hope to fight those diseases.

He said although medicines were available to prevent HIV/AIDS, "the greatest human catastrophe," from becoming an immediate death sentence as well as to cure tuberculosis and malaria, people in the developing world could not afford these life saving drugs. That was why civil society and the UN established the Fund in 2001 to raise money in the fight against the three pandemics.

But so far, the Fund had attracted pledges of $4.7 billion - nowhere near the projected $15 billion needed annually to fight the diseases effectively.

Joining Mr. Moghalu was renowned actor and UN Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador Danny Glover, who expressed his hope that the conference would provide a new direction and new partnerships between the UN family and civil society. Those partnerships had to be based on recognition of the importance NGOs played in society, he said.

The NGO community, which plays a typical role in directing resources to those most in need, had come to the conference with questions not only about human security and dignity but also about sustaining their own operations and sustaining some level of health for those in need, Mr. Glover added.

The three-day conference, held under the theme "Human Security and Dignity," brings together about 2,000 organizations from civil society that work with the UN.

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