President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo Wednesday launched US$204 million Global Fund grant towards the eradication of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by 2030 and strengthen systems for health across the country.
The grant is being made available to Ghana by the Global Fund, the largest multilateral investor in grants for health systems through its New Funding Model Three (NFM3).
At a short ceremony, in Accra, President Akufo-Addo said the grant would enable the government to build health structures to deal with other chronic and infectious diseases.
Assuring that government would fulfil its counterpart financing of US$45 million to ensure that the grant was utilized in Ghana, President Akufo-Addo said his administration would increase domestic financing to ensure universal health coverage for all.
The grant, he said, would among other things, accelerate Ghana’s progress towards the realization of the ambitious UNAIDS 90-90-90 HIV treatment target to help end the AIDS epidemic.
The 90-90-90 UNAIDS treatment target, is a broader global health and development effort, which set a target of getting 90% of HIV-positive person to know their status; to get 90% of all people diagnosed with HIV infection to receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and getting 90 percent of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy to have viral suppression by 2020.
The launch of the new Global Fund Grant is in line with the new national policy direction on health, as enshrined in the revised National Health Policy (NHP, 2020); as well as the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Roadmap 2020-2030, which seeks to work collaboratively with all stakeholders and partners to ensure that all people in Ghana have timely access to high quality health services, irrespective of their ability to pay at the point of use.
This includes the diagnosis, treatment and management of HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.
The President also noted that the new grant would help expand detection of TB cases and TB treatment.
Additionally, an in-patient facility for the management of drug resistant TB patients would be constructed at Nsawam, in the Eastern Region.
The grant would also enable the Government to increase the coverage of distribution of mosquito nets, scale up seasonal malaria chemoprevention for children from the five northern regions and from Oti and Bono Regions towards a achieving zero malaria infection.
He urged the Ministry of Health to see to the effective utilization of the grant to serve its purpose, and to work with stakeholders to ensure that processes and controls on the quality of service to be provided against the three diseases were improved.
He pledged the Government’s commitment to provide skilled human resources for the management of the diseases.
The Global Fund partnership has since 2002, seen the cumulative disbursements of some US$804 million to Ghana.
The funding arrangement has evolved over the years with the inclusion of new components to allow for the strengthening of the overall health system of the country.
These efforts have collectively culminated in improved health outcomes.
