ISLAMABAD, Aug 6: The Global Fund, Geneva, will provide Pakistan a grant of $10.47 million to help it fight deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

An agreement to this effect was signed at the National Institute of Health (NIH) here on Wednesday by Minister of State Hamid Yar Hiraj and Taufiqur Rahman of the Global Fund. Secretary health Ejaz Rahim, WHO representative Faizullah Kakar and NIH executive director Dr Athar Saeed Dil were also present.

With the signing of the agreement, Pakistan has become the first South Asian country to receive the grant of $10.47 million, out of which $3.8 million would be spent on HIV/AIDS, $2.248 million for TB programme and $4.4 million for malaria control during the next two years.

The projects under the Global Fund on AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) will be implemented through public-private partnership in line with the national strategies and will contribute towards millennium decade goals, besides improving the health indicators under the poverty reduction strategy of the government.

Mr Hiraj highlighted the importance of a mass awareness campaign, especially in the rural areas, and the need for specifically targeting the rural population as they always lagged behind in benefiting from such programmes.

Mr Rahim said through the programme HIV patients would be treated for the first time in the country.

The investment being made through the fund will be utilized to fill in the gaps by developing public-private partnership, the secretary said, adding that the grant meant that our entire health policy had been endorsed after a rigorous test of international scrutiny.

The GFATM was established by the G-8 countries as a result of commitments made at the UN General Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS in June 2001 to review additional resources/funds to fight AIDS, TB and malaria.

Under the HIV/AIDS component, it is envisaged that the project will improve the knowledge of HIV transmission among schoolchildren in the private sector in Karachi and Peshawar as well as street-children, besides setting up of support centres for those inflicted with HIV/AIDS.

Life skills curriculum for secondary schoolchildren will be developed in addition to the provision of supplementary reading material on reproductive health. It also envisages establishment of drop-in centres for 20,000 street-children to equip them with life skills; training of blood bank staff, supply and end-use audit of kits for HIV and hepatitis B, C and monitoring by a legally-enacted authority, development of anti-retro viral (ARV) treatment policy and procurement of ARV drugs, training of hospital staff in provision of quality ARV therapy and recruitment and training of staff for the establishment of 16 centres, including outreach services and community support service, and evaluation of the outcome.

For the TB programme, the project will provide TB-DOTS (direct observation treatment strategy) coverage to an additional 20 million people through public-private partnership, strengthen referral of complicated adult TB cases and suspected TB child patients from the primary healthcare centres to district hospitals.

For the malaria programme, the project will strengthen malaria microscopy at peripheral health facilities, district and provincial referral laboratories, upgrade national malaria training centres to improve early diagnosis and prompt treatment, enhance technical and management capacity of healthcare providers in the 23 high-risk districts using national treatment guidelines and protocols.Training of 4,800 health workers is also part of the programme.