In her speech to the World Health Assembly Monday, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland welcomed the announcement by the United States government to contribute US$200 million to a global HIV/AIDS and health fund aimed at fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

In announcing the US contribution, "the President of the United States signalled the importance of global health, and the importance of working with the United Nations as a partner, » Dr Brundtland said in the speech to Health Ministers from WHO’s 191 Member States. "The U.S. has a key role to play in the UN and in the betterment of world health."

WHO estimates that as much as US$7 billion are needed from all sources annually to combat AIDS in low and middle income countries for an effective response to the epidemic, and that another $3 billion would be needed annually to drastically reduce the impact of tuberculosis and malaria.

WHO anticipates that this announcement will give significant momentum to the development of the fund. The US announcement is particularly welcome in the run-up to both the United Nations Special Session on HIV/AIDS, to be held in New York from 25-27 June, and to the summit of the G-8 group of countries, scheduled for Genoa, Italy, in July this year.

"A significant proportion of the new money is needed to build the systems in health and other sectors needed to deliver results," Dr Brundtland said in her speech. "This means working through a diversity of public, not-for-profit and private providers, with clear targets and better means for assessing progress. WHO will intensify its support for Member States as they scale up and streamline their health systems."

AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria continue to spread worldwide and urgent measures are needed to stem the epidemic.

By the end of 2000, 36.1 million people were living with HIV or AIDS, and 21.8 million had died since the start of the epidemic. In 2000 alone, 3 million people died of AIDS-related causes and 5.3 million were newly-infected.

More than 500 million people are affected by malaria and one million people – mainly children – die each year from the disease.

Around 8 million people become sick with tuberculosis each year. It kills about 2 million people each year.