Global AIDS fund signs first grant agreement

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria on Friday signed its first two grant agreements. The fund will provide $6.5 million to Ghana to build 16 voluntary counseling and testing centers, to provide mother-to-child transmission prevention using antiretroviral drugs, to provide anti-HIV drugs to about 2,000 people with AIDS, and to provide 20,000 tuberculosis patients with directly observed treatment. The grants were signed by fund executive director Richard Feachem and Ghana's health minister Kwaku Afriyie. According to fund statistics, about 40,000 people die of AIDS-related causes each year in Ghana.