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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 28, 2001

World Bank to Pump Extra 500 Million Dollars into AIDS Fight

The World Bank said Tuesday it would consider pumping an extra 500 million dollars into a battle against HIV/AIDS, doubling the financing of its existing program.


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The World Bank said Tuesday it would consider pumping an extra 500 million dollars into a battle against HIV/AIDS, doubling the financing of its existing program.

The planned extra funding was announced as the World Bank appointed its first global HIV/AIDS adviser, Ethiopian expert Debrework Zewdie, to intensify the campaign.

Zewdie said the bank last year approved a 500-million-dollar, three-year program. But 400 million dollars of the total had already been committed and more than 20 African countries were asking for help.

"So we are going back to our board in January for another 500 million to reach the countries that are interested in being involved," said Zewdie after her appointment.

The extra funding would be provided in the form of no-interest loans, the bank said.

The World Bank aimed to broaden the existing program from the medical field to others areas including, most critically, education and social protection, she said.

The disease had left more than 13 million orphans, of whom 12 million were in Africa, the World Bank advisor said.

While the attitude to the fight against AIDS had advanced greatly in Africa, where complacency had now been largely overcome, new regions suffering from the disease, such as the Caribbean, had yet to travel the same road.

Africa is home to an estimated 25 million of the world's 36 million people with the human immunodeficiency virus, the World Bank said.

The Caribbean had an estimated 500,000 people with HIV/AIDS, with rates of infection running at 12 percent in some urban areas.

South Asia had approximately 4.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS.




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