First Grant Awards to be Announced in April

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a new
initiative to combat the epidemics that kill six million people
each year, today announced the appointment of an international
panel of experts that will review all grant proposals and make
recommendations to the Board for funding.

The 17-member Technical Review Panel includes experts in disease
control and prevention, clinical care, health education, and
international development. All members of the panel have worked
in the developing world, where the HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria
epidemics have the greatest impact.

The Technical Review Panel will meet in Geneva from 25 March to 5
April to review the first round of funding proposals. The Board
will make final funding decisions, and will announce the first
grant awards at the conclusion of its next meeting, scheduled for
22-24 April in New York.

"This panel of experts will help the Global Fund to identify
projects that will have clear and demonstrable impact in the
fight against AIDS, TB, and malaria," said Dr. Chrispus Kiyonga, the
Fund's Board Chair, who announced the appointments today.

"We are very pleased that the Fund will be guided by some of the
world's leading public health authorities, who bring with them
invaluable technical knowledge and extensive field experience."

Technical Review Panel members were selected from a group of
almost 700 nominees from around the world. Members of the panel were
drawn from government and non-governmental organizations, the
developed and developing worlds, and the public and private
sectors. Panel members will serve in their personal capacities
as experts in their fields, not as representatives of their
institutions or governments.

Appointees to the Technical Review Panel include:

Jonathan Broomberg, South Africa
Alex Godwin Coutinho, Uganda
Usa Duongsaa, Thailand
Paula Fujiwara, USA
Sarah Julia Gordon, Guyana
Ranieri Guerra, Italy
Michel Kazatchkine, France
Peter Kazembe, Malawi
Mary Ann Lansang, Philippines
Fabio Luelmo, Argentina
Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, Poland
Jane Elizabeth Miller, UK
Toru Mori, Japan
Peter Sandiford, New Zealand
Amadou Sy Elhadj, Senegal
Valdilea Veloso Dos Santos, Brazil
Kong-Lai Zhang, China

About the Global Fund

AIDS, TB and malaria have a devastating global impact, causing
nearly six million deaths a year - 10% of the world's total. The
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is an
independent public-private partnership working to increase global
resources to combat the three diseases, to direct these resources
where they are needed most, and to ensure that they are used
effectively. The Fund was created to share resources and
expertise across national boundaries and private and public sectors
in order to make an ongoing and significant contribution to the goal
of reducing infections, illness, and death. The Fund will disburse
between $700-$800 million in 2002, effectively increasing global
spending on these epidemics by 50%.