The Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has announced a $33 million commitment from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) in London to accelerate progress in the fight against HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Global Fund will match the CIFF pledge with an additional $49.5 million in support of a targeted deployment of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in five priority countries—the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa—where an estimated 10 million PrEP initiations are needed to meet a goal of reducing HIV infections by 90 percent by 2030. PrEP is a preventative medication for people at risk of contracting HIV. According to the Global Fund, when taken as prescribed, PrEP can reduce the risk of HIV infection from sex by about 99 percent.

The Global Fund and CIFF have partnered to fight HIV since 2015, and this latest pledge represents an increase of more than 30 percent over CIFF’s previous commitments. The pledge comes ahead of the Global Fund’s Seventh Replenishment, which aims to raise $18 billion to fund its next three-year cycle of grants. The Global Fund estimates that the funding of $18 billion would save 20 million lives, while strengthening health and community systems to reinforce pandemic preparedness.

“The Global Fund has a track record of deploying well-governed public-private partnerships within its country-led approach to scale proven innovations,” said Chris Hohn, co-founder of CIFF, who joined the Giving Pledge in 2013. “Equal access to lifesaving products like PrEP is, tragically, not a given across the world. Catalytic investments at the right time, with organizations like the Global Fund, can change this, increasing the impact of philanthropic funds and saving millions of lives.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/YakubovAlim)