13 December 2013 - Geneva - UNITAID’s Executive Board has committed funding of US $14.9 million to the Stop TB Partnership's Global Drug Facility (GDF) to expand the Strategic Rotating Stockpile (SRS) for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) medicines.
The GDF stockpile aims to help halt the spread of MDR-TB by guaranteeing supply and improving delivery times of drugs. Countries will benefit from increased flexibility in drug supply as they take on the challenge of scaling up the management of MDR-TB. This support will be linked to the Global Fund Rapid Response Mechanism and GDF aims to move the SRS programme towards longer-term funding sources and a new operating model.
"I would like to thank the UNITAID Board and Secretariat for supporting efforts to ensure access to quality drugs for the treatment of drug-resistant TB," said Dr Lucica Ditiu, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership. "It is now essential that as we increase our efforts to make drugs available, we also ensure that we have the necessary capacity on the ground for the management of drug-resistant TB."
The funding for GDF is one of a series of grants approved by the UNITAID board worth more than US $140 million in total. For more information, visit the UNITAID website.