Protesting Kenyans call for emergency donor conference to raise $2B for Global Fund

"Hundreds of HIV-positive Kenyans protested outside the European Union's Nairobi office on Monday, accusing the E.U. of causing unnecessary deaths by cutting funding to" the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, AlertNet reports. Late last year, the Global Fund announced it would not hold a new round of grants until 2014, the news service notes, adding, "The demonstrators called on the Global Fund to hold an emergency donor conference to raise $2 billion so developing countries can apply for grants this year" (Migiro, 1/30). Though no new grants will be awarded before 2014, the Global Fund "has set up what it calls a 'transitional funding mechanism,' which covers the continuation of essential services" of existing grants, VOA News writes (Majtenyi, 1/30).