Burnet Institute Director and CEO, Professor Brendan Crabb AC and Dr Mark Dybul at the Burnet round table

The elimination of malaria and tuberculosis (TB) can be achieved inside the next decade, according to Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Dr Mark Dybul.

At a round table discussion hosted by Burnet Institute and involving Australia’s leading public health organisations, Dr Dybul said potentially the eradication of malaria and TB is possible.

“We are the generation that can control malaria and TB to bring them towards elimination, literally, in the next five-to-seven years,” Dr Dybul said.

“HIV, which is the modern plague of our times, can be controlled too so we have this wonderful, historic health opportunity.

“We need new tools, new vaccines for all three diseases and better therapies, but just with what we have today, we can get complete control.”

Dr Dybul who is in Australia for talks with the Federal Government ahead of the next funding ‘Replenishment’, said Australia receives a 15:1 return on its current investment in the Global Fund of AUD $200 million over three years.

Failure to continue to invest, he said, will put this return at risk with few other donor organisations capable or willing to invest in the Asia and Pacific regions.

Burnet Director and CEO, Professor Brendan Crabb AC said the Global Fund achieves its greatest impact in the development of health systems that deliver solutions to malaria, TB and HIV and AIDS.

“That was the message that came through today,” Professor Crabb said.

“If you want to make a broad and sustainable impact, especially in difficult and poor nations and in developing nations, then supporting the Global Fund is the way to do it, because they leave a health system much stronger than they found it.”

Professor Crabb said Burnet and the Global Fund have both benefited from a strong, longstanding and positive relationship.

“Burnet has been a recipient of Global Fund money for quite some years for work in many countries,” Professor Crabb said.

“We work with the Global Fund because they fit very neatly with our mission to support the poor, the vulnerable and the marginalised.

“That’s what they’re about as a funding agency, and that’s what we’re about as a delivering agency.”