Global Fund considers loans to fight AIDS

By James Kilner

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria may loan cash to developing countries when they grow too wealthy to qualify for grants, the fund's director, Michel Kazatchkine, said on Sunday.

Including loans in its remit would allow The Global Fund -- which has raised about $10.8 billion for donations since 2002 -- to extend help to governments and civic groups in heavily infected but increasingly wealthy countries.

"To us it's important that when the world's money for aid is being distributed it not only takes into account economic factors but also, for example, burden of disease," Kazatchkine told Reuters in an interview at an HIV/AIDS conference in Moscow.

The Global Fund, which was launched by Group of Eight industrialised nations and is financed largely by the U.S. and European governments, estimates that around 6 million people die every year from either AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria.

By the end of next year 10 countries from the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region -- including Turkey, Kazakhstan and Russia -- will no longer qualify for Global Fund grants as they will be considered upper income countries.

But some of these countries have only just built up the mechanisms to battle AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria and Kazatchkine cited Kazakhstan as an example of a country which may benefit from a loan and extended help from The Global Fund.

Former Soviet Kazakhstan in Central Asia has grown richer over the last decade from high energy and commodity prices but faces an accelerating number of people with the HIV virus.

"The challenge for Kazakhstan is how to manage in the future," Kazatchkine said.