Gov’t Asks Global Fund to Unblock $20 Million Malaria Grant
A Health Ministry official said yesterday the government was still hoping to recoup the last $20 million of a Global Fund grant for fighting malaria that the international charity has held back because of Cambodia’s poor use of fund dollars. Last week, a spokesman for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said the $20 million was not heading to Cambodia because of “performance below the expectations” on the original $56 million grant. The money was earmarked for the Health Ministry in 2010 to bring down malaria infection rates and contain a new strain of the mosquito-borne virus increasingly resistant to the best available drugs. The Health Ministry’s National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control is in charge of spending the money. …
