Global Health
Global Fund Celebrates 20 Years of Transformative Partnership with Unitaid to Increase Access to Health Innovation – Updates
Global Fund celebrates 20 years of transformative partnership with Unitaid to extend access to health innovation
– As Unitaid celebrates its twentieth anniversary, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) celebrates 20 years of collaboration that has accelerated health innovation and expanded access to lifesaving technologies in low- and middle-income countries.
The two organizations play complementary roles: Unitaid identifies and develops revolutionary health products, accelerating their market readiness and affordability, while the Global Fund focuses on accelerated market access and implements these innovations at scale, enabling countries to adopt and sustain them at sustainable prices. Together, the 2 organizations shape health markets, helping to be sure that life-saving innovations reach countries faster and at reasonably priced prices.
“Unitaid is an indispensable partner in helping you turn innovation into impact,” said Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund. “As promising innovative tools emerge, our strong partnership will remain essential to ensure that tools reach the communities that need them most and support our shared goal of eliminating HIV, tuberculosis and malaria as public health threats.”
Over the past 20 years, the strong partnership between the Global Fund and Unitaid, with support from other partners, has accelerated the introduction and dissemination of breakthrough tools within the fight against HIV, tuberculosis (TB), malaria and Covid-19.
Advancing innovation in response to HIV
Unitaid played a key role in pioneering the introduction of generic medicines dolutegravir-based antiretroviral therapyenabling hundreds of thousands of individuals with HIV to access simpler, higher tolerated and reasonably priced treatment. Thanks to national efforts and global partnerships just like the one between the Global Fund and Unitaid, dolutegravir-based formulations reach greater than 24 million people living with HIV. Unitaid also contributed to this lowering the fee of dolutegravir in childrenwhich the Global Fund purchased and delivered to 50 countries under the joint procurement mechanism.
In recent years, Unitaid and the Global Fund – along with their partners – have supported countries’ readiness to introduce next-generation, long-acting HIV prevention options, including dapivirine vaginal ring, injectable cabotegravir, and most recently lenacapavir, while also strengthening regional manufacturing capability through initiatives supporting rapid HIV tests manufactured in Africa.
Accelerating progress within the fight against tuberculosis
Unitaid and Global Fund have negotiated an almost 70% price reduction for a short-term preventive treatment against tuberculosis called 3HP. The Unitaid team’s work also accelerated the introduction of a generic medicine and formulations suitable for kids. Since Unitaid first introduced 3HP in 2018, it has been scaled up in 78 countries; In 2022 alone, the Global Fund supported its implementation in a further 14 countries.
Recently, Unitaid and the Global Fund collaborated as strategic partners to enhance and scale up near-point-of-care (NPOC) molecular TB testing, moving revolutionary diagnostic tools from the pilot phase to widespread and equitable adoption in high-burden countries.
Expanding the malaria toolkit
Through initiatives corresponding to the New Nets Project, the Global Fund, Unitaid and its partners supported the event, evaluation and large-scale deployment of 56 million dual-ingredient insecticide-treated nets between 2019 and 2022, stopping an estimated 13 million cases of malaria and 24,600 deaths in 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Recently, the Global Fund and partners launched a brand new initiative to speed up the introduction and scale-up of revolutionary spatial deterrent technology, designed to enrich existing, highly effective prevention tools corresponding to insecticide-treated nets. The initiative also relies on contributions from partners, including Unitaid, whose ongoing investment in evidence generation has brought spatial repellents to market and continues to support their dissemination in countries most affected by malaria.
Responding to Covid-19 and increasing access to medical oxygen
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Global Fund and Unitaid joined forces with other partners to support test-and-treat programs to forestall hospitalizations and deaths amongst essentially the most at-risk people in low- and middle-income countries.
Drawing lessons from the pandemic, when each organizations mobilized funding to deal with acute oxygen shortages in low- and middle-income countries, Global Fund and Unitaid joined other partners to ascertain Global Oxygen Alliance (GO2AL). The Alliance supports countries by financing oxygen production and supplies, providing technical assistance and training, and advocating for equal access to medical oxygen.
A renewed and strengthened partnership
In June 2024, the 2 organizations renewed and strengthened their partnership, underscoring their shared commitment to improving equitable access to high-quality health products and innovations at reasonably priced prices.