Ruhal fears stop to HIV funds

22 December 2011, 18:00 PM

Staff Correspondent

Health Minister Dr AFM Ruhal Haque yesterday expressed concern that the existing activities to prevent HIV/AIDS might be hampered in future if global funding stops coming. He said funding might stop, as donors now give more attention to the severely HIV-hit countries and leave less affected countries like Bangladesh out of their focus. Addressing a seminar titled "Capacity Building of Local NGOs: Prevention of HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh" in the capital's Institution of Diploma Engineers, Ruhal Haque stressed the need for partnership between state-run organisations and NGOs to tackle the probable crisis. Bangladesh now only has a single source of funding from Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international fund that began in 2002; but it may stop in the middle of next year, said Prof Dr ASM Amanullah of Dhaka University in the keynote speech at the seminar organised by STI/AIDS Network of Bangladesh (SANB). The country currently has a total of 2,533 who are HIV positive and another 1,101 persons who are already suffering from AIDS. Dr Capt (Retd) Muzibur Rahman Fakir, state minister for health; Dr AMR Chowdhury, senior adviser and acting managing director of Rockefeller Foundation, Bangkok; AKM Maksud, secretary general of SANB; and Shaheen Anam, executive director of Manusher Jonno Foundation; also spoke at the seminar.