New UNITAID grants focus on paediatric HIV, TB and malaria

On 7 December 2012, UNITAID announced several new grants to enable the production of adapted treatments for children in resource limited settings. Among these grants (in USD) are:

Up to $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 $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.

Up to $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.

In addition to these principle grants, the UNITAID Executive Board approved four market entry grants to manufacturers of point-of-care HIV diagnostic tests in the final stages of development.

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.