Several donors to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria “continue to hold back their contributions for this year … add[ing] up to more than $500 million that the Global Fund had been counting on for this year out of a total budget of about $3 billion,” the Lancet reports.

Following a December 2010 report from the Office of the Inspector General to the Global Fund Board that identified fraud and irregularities with fund donations in four countries, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the European Commission (EC) froze or withheld pledges to the Global Fund, according to the article. The Lancet reports that Germany, Denmark and Sweden will consider releasing their funds based on the findings of a final report of an independent international panel charged with “assess[ing] the risk of fraud and misappropriation in the Global Fund portfolio and the robustness of the Global Fund’s existing systems of control,” which is due out in September, as well as a confidential EC institutional audit that currently is being reviewed by the Global Fund.

“The Global Fund Secretariat insists that, despite the shortage of funds, no planned activities under ongoing programs, including distribution of drugs, have been affected so far,” according to the Lancet (Usher, 8/6).