Global health funding cuts threatening fight against HIV, TB in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, NGO report says

The fight against HIV and tuberculosis (TB) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is being threatened by cuts in global health funding, according to "a report [.pdf] by leading European non-governmental health organizations," Reuters reports. In the report, "experts called on the European Union to step in to fill the gaps left by global donors to countries within and neighboring its borders," the news service notes. According to Reuters, "[c]ountries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have some of the world's fastest growing HIV epidemics," and "Europe is also home to the world's highest documented rates of drug-resistant TB" (Kelland, 9/18).

In a press release, Results U.K., one of the groups involved with the report, said it "highlights how the Global Fund [to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria] funding shortfall and changes in eligibility criteria risk undermining momentous achievements that have been made in the fight against TB and HIV in the Eastern European and Central Asian (EECA) region" (9/19). "The NGOs called for the E.U. to make targeted investments in the health of its neighbors, where the Global Fund is unable to, and to ensure it honored existing pledges to the fund and seeks to increase support for it in the years ahead," Reuters writes (9/18).