Global AIDS fund may run out of money by mid 2003

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria will run out of money by the middle of 2003 unless it receives new donations, according to fund director Richard Feachem. The fund has received about $2.1 billion in pledges but has collected only about $500 million, The Boston Globe reports. No substantial pledges have been made to the fund for months, and donations from the private sector are particularly low, Feachem says. "The danger is, we would make round-two awards at the end of January that we ultimately couldn't finance," he said. "Round three in June is when the crunch is really going to hit. We can't go on making commitments to fund projects without being dead sure we have the money."