The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Monday in a statement posted on its Web site responded to a recent Los Angeles Times article about global health, the Times reports. According to the Times, its story "described how a focus on a few diseases has sometimes contributed to medical staffing shortages and drawn attention from other pressing problems, such as childhood pneumonia, maternal deaths and malnutrition."

The Global Fund in the statement said, "Imbalances will occur when making so much money available for certain health areas, especially during the first few years ... and the Times is right in pointing this out." The statement adds that the Times article drew "distorted and inaccurate conclusions." The data examined by the Times did not reflect benefits of programs that have been in place for only a few years, including those that distribute millions of insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria, the Global Fund said, adding, "The positive effect on child mortality will be substantial, but it is still too early to measure it" (Piller/Smith, Los Angeles Times, 12/20).

The statement is available online. /english//News_and_Events/Hot_Topics/15678.htm

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