UNITAID, a global health initiative by the Governments of Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the UK to provide sustainable funding for the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, has made new grants to allow hundreds of thousands of children in developing countries to access better and more affordable medicines for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (TB).

“For too long now, the global health community has done too little to meet the special needs of children living with these diseases in poor countries,” said Dr Philippe Douste-Blazy, chairman of the UNITAID Executive Board. “With very few child-adapted treatments available, both paediatric HIV and tuberculosis have been at risk of becoming neglected diseases. UNITAID’s new investments will enable the production of adapted treatments and help put these diseases back on the global agenda.”

At its 17th meeting, the UNITAID Executive Board reviewed the largest ever number of proposals put for its consideration and committed up to US$ 120 million for projects which address particular treatment and diagnostics needs that will help save thousands of lives a year in low-income countries.

Highlighted among these grants are

Up to US$ 34 million to the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) to accelerate the global adoption of injectable artesunate, the best treatment for the 8 million annual cases of severe malaria, occurring mostly in under-five-year-olds in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Up to US$ 17.3 million to the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) to make child-adapted paediatric HIV treatments available. This project will help save the lives of some of the 72% of children that require life-saving HIV treatment but don’t have access.

Up to US$ 16.7 million to the TB Alliance to support the production of appropriate paediatric TB medicine formulations. Currently, a lack of child-adapted TB medicines contributes to high morbidity among children.

In addition to these principle grants, the UNITAID Executive Board approved four “market entry” grants to help manufacturers of “point-of-care” HIV diagnostic machines in the final stages of development get over the hurdles of  making their products available to those in need.

“These investments follow a rigorous year-long process of in-depth market intelligence led by the UNITAID Secretariat, which landscaped and analysed the market for treatments and diagnostics to inform the current round of grant-making decisions,” added Dr Douste-Blazy. “I commend the Secretariat for providing the expertise to make these new projects a reality. This work will soon be translated into lives saved through the provision of better health products that these projects will ensure.”

All of these new grants build on UNITAID’s successful efforts over the last six years to scale-up medicines and diagnostics for HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. The UNITAID Executive Board also approved up to US$ 8 million to continue one such existing project which ensures that procurement of paediatric HIV medicines will continue into 2013/14. A positive decision regarding the request from the Global Fund for an extension of funding of the Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria (AMFm) is expected in January. Finally, the Executive Board also confirmed its commitment to supporting the WHO Prequalification of Medicines Programme on a multi-year basis.