Antigua and Barbuda to appeal for more funding for two diseases

A wide-cross section of local officials will meet on Friday to hammer out what Antigua and Barbuda wants to include in a draft regional proposal to access more grants from the Global Fund for the elimination of HIV and Tuberculosis.
The consultation is with Joan Didier, the director of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, Regional Coordinating Machinery.
The body was mandated by the Global Fund and established in 2003 by O.E.C.S. ministers of health to enable the award of money from the Fund.
The Regional Coordinating Machinery received a three-year grant of five-point-two-million U.S. dollars in 2015.
And Antigua and Barbuda AIDS Programme Manager Delcora Williams says that the O.E.C.S. is pushing for another three-year grant, this time valued at three-point-five million U.S. dollars.
The deadline to submit the application to the Global Fund is April 28th.
Williams said that the Antigua and Barbuda government spends roughly one-point-three million dollars on the country’s HIV response, so any money received from the Global Fund will supplement the state’s response.
Ahead of those talk, Didier, says the consultations are critical to getting feedback on the current Global Fund grant as well as recommendations on the way forward for the regional fight against HIV and Tuberculosis.