The UN-administered Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced Thursday it will give $33 million to Indonesia, the Philippines and several Pacific islands to aid the fight against the three diseases. The money will be divided into seven grants and will go toward prevention and treatment programs in the region, focusing on remote rural and indigenous populations.

"This will mean rapid diagnosis, quality care and effective prevention measures for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in regions that up to now have had little or no access to these services," said Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund.

Indonesia will receive up to $15 million over a two-year span. Some of the money will go to improve AIDS education and care for HIV-infected people. The remainder will go to fight malaria in four eastern provinces, providing malaria treatment posts in remote villages, drugs for resistant strains of the mosquito-born disease, and insecticide-treated bed nets.

The Philippines, which has the eighth-highest TB burden in the world, will receive up to $3.4 million for the expansion of a World Health Organization TB program. In addition, a malaria program for remote areas will get more than $7 million for rapid diagnosis and treatment facilities, bed nets and drugs.

The Global Fund plans to give $3 million to 11 nations to help the battle against HIV/AIDS in the Western Pacific, boosting surveillance systems and laboratory capacity and launching youth-orientated programs. A grant of $1.7 million will go to ten of the island states to help reduce their TB burden by 10 percent in two years. TB is the leading cause of death in the Western Pacific region. The Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, both among the world's poorest countries, will receive nearly $2.5 million for malaria control programs.

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