全球肝炎基金准备推出

StephenW

Global fund for hepatitis prepares for rollout
By Jenny Lei Ravelo // 26 February 2019
An Egyptian doctor tests for hepatitis C. Photo by: REUTERS / Mohamed Abd El Ghany

MANILA — The Fund for Elimination of Viral Hepatitis, or EndHep2030, the world’s only corpus dedicated to the elimination of viral hepatitis is expected to open soon.

Starting April, the fund will accept proposals from charitable organizations working to raise awareness on and improve delivery systems for the screening and treatment of viral hepatitis.

“[The goal is to] help donors, potential donors, to really understand why hepatitis is a global public health challenge.”
— Wangsheng Li, co-chair of the oversight committee, EndHep2030

The fund plans to announce the first tranche of grants around World Hepatitis Day on July 28, said Wangsheng Li, co-chair of the fund’s oversight committee and president of the ZeShan Foundation, which is among the fund’s founding donors. Established in 2004, the ZeShan Foundation is a privately-funded family foundation based in Hong Kong which provides grants both domestically and abroad with a focus on health, education, post-disaster community rehabilitation, and social development. The foundation has been supporting work on hepatitis, particularly hepatitis B infection in China, since 2006.

The announcement comes more than a year after the fund’s launch in November 2017 at the World Hepatitis Summit in São Paulo, Brazil. While there are a host of global health issues, Li said the ZeShan Foundation has chosen to focus its attention on hepatitis elimination after learning of the scale of the problem and the unavailability of funding to address it.

Viral hepatitis kills 1.34 million people globally every year, more than tuberculosis or HIV/AIDS, according to a 2017 study. This includes deaths from cirrhosis and liver cancer due to hepatitis B and C infections. But international funding to help address the problem has been scant, with a number of nonprofit organizations working to raise awareness about the issue relying mostly on private donations.

“The way we approach what we would like our philanthropic dollars [to support] is we're looking at where the needs are [and] where the gaps are,” Li told Devex at the recently concluded one-day public health forum in Manila, the Philippines, jointly organized by the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver and the Coalition for the Eradication of Viral Hepatitis in Asia Pacific.

Apart from filling the gap in funding for hepatitis, Li said helping stop the transmission of infection will help prevent deaths, including from liver cancer and cirrhosis.

“We think we could be more effective [by channeling our resources to hepatitis elimination]. We could play a more catalytic role in terms of solving [this] global health challenge,” he said.
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A catalytic fund


To date, a few United States-based philanthropic foundations have donated to EndHep2030, including the John C. Martin Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Li didn’t disclose how much resources the fund has raised to date, but the ZeShan Foundation has committed $5 million for the first round of grants.

“Because it’s a short period [since launch], we don’t think we can make a lot of grants right away. We want to make sure the quality of the programs are really top notch,” he said.

The fund aims to support government capacity building and advocacy. The goal is to help nations develop their national action plans for viral hepatitis elimination, and find ways to improve health care delivery systems that include increasing hepatitis B vaccine coverage of newborns at birth and raising the number of people screened and treated for hepatitis.

While there are no current plans to directly provide funds to governments, Li said grantees need to have a very strong collaboration or partnership with governments.

But the fund has another function: to build donor education.

“[The goal is to] help donors, potential donors, to really understand why hepatitis is a global public health challenge. Why actually it's worth all the effort to work towards this common goal of elimination,” Li said. “It's not a good thing to [have only one fund] in this very important area for work. It's a process we're working on to get more donors, philanthropists on board.”

The fund aims to raise $1 billion during its lifespan, and hire professional staff to run and oversee its operations. Li said there are plans to set up offices in Hong Kong, and San Francisco in the United States. And hopefully, in two years, they’d be able to make available at least $100 million annually, he said.
Unlike most global funds operating in the development sector, however, EndHep2030 will have a limited run. It is projected to “sunset” by 2035, Li said.

“Because if we say we want to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030, ... by then our job should be done,” he explained.

StephenW

全球肝炎基金准备推出
作者：Jenny Lei Ravelo // 2019年2月26日
一名埃及医生为丙型肝炎检测照片：REUTERS / Mohamed Abd El Ghany

马尼拉 - 世界上唯一一个致力于消除病毒性肝炎的消除病毒性肝炎基金或EndHep2030预计将很快开放。

从4月份开始，该基金将接受慈善组织提出的建议，这些组织致力于提高对病毒性肝炎筛查和治疗的认识并改进其传递系统。

“[目标是]帮助捐赠者，潜在捐赠者真正理解为什么肝炎是全球公共卫生挑战。”
- 监督委员会联合主席王胜生，EndHep2030

该基金计划于7月28日公布世界肝炎日的第一笔拨款，该基金监督委员会联席主席兼泽山基金会主席王胜生表示，该基金是该基金的创始捐赠者之一。泽山基金会成立于2004年，是一家位于香港的私人家庭基金会，在国内外提供资助，重点关注健康，教育，灾后社区康复和社会发展。自2006年以来，该基金会一直在支持中国的肝炎，尤其是乙型肝炎感染工作。

该基金于2017年11月在巴西圣保罗举行的世界肝炎峰会上推出一年多。虽然存在许多全球健康问题，但李说，泽山基金会在了解到问题的严重程度和无法获得解决问题的资金后，选择将注意力集中在消除肝炎上。

根据2017年的一项研究，病毒性肝炎每年在全球造成134万人死亡，超过结核病或艾滋病毒/艾滋病。这包括因乙型肝炎和丙型肝炎感染引起的肝硬化和肝癌死亡。但是，帮助解决这一问题的国际资金很少，许多非营利组织正致力于提高对主要依靠私人捐款的问题的认识。

“我们接近我们想要的慈善资金[支持]的方式是我们正在考虑需求的位置[和]差距在哪里，”李在最近结束的为期一天的马尼拉公共卫生论坛上告诉Devex ，菲律宾，由亚太地区肝病研究协会和亚太地区根除病毒性肝炎联盟联合举办。

除了弥补肝炎资金缺口外，李说，帮助阻止感染的传播将有助于预防包括肝癌和肝硬化在内的死亡。

“我们认为我们可以更有效[通过将我们的资源用于消除肝炎]。我们可以在解决[这个]全球健康挑战方面发挥更大的催化作用，“他说。
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催化基金


迄今为止，一些美国的慈善基金会捐赠给EndHep2030，包括John C. Martin基金会和罗伯特伍德约翰逊基金会。 Li没有透露该基金目前筹集了多少资源，但泽山基金会已承诺为第一轮拨款提供500万美元。

“因为发布时间很短，我们认为我们不能马上进行大量补助。我们希望确保节目的质量真的是一流的，“他说。

该基金旨在支持政府的能力建设和宣传。目标是帮助各国制定消除病毒性肝炎的国家行动计划，并找到改善医疗保健服务系统的方法，包括增加出生时新生儿的乙肝疫苗覆盖率，并增加筛查和治疗肝炎的人数。

虽然目前没有直接向政府提供资金的计划，但李说受赠者需要与政府建立强有力的合作或伙伴关系。

但该基金还有另一项功能：建立捐赠者教育。

“[目标是]帮助捐赠者，潜在捐赠者真正理解为什么肝炎是全球公共卫生挑战。为什么实际上值得努力实现这一消除的共同目标，“李说。 “在这个非常重要的工作领域，[只有一个基金]并不是一件好事。这是我们正在努力让更多的捐赠者，慈善家参与进来的过程。“

该基金的目标是在其生命周期内筹集10亿美元，并聘请专业人员来管理和监督其运营。李说，有计划在香港和美国旧金山设立办事处。他说，希望在两年内，他们能够每年至少提供1亿美元。
然而，与大多数在开发领域运营的全球基金不同，EndHep2030的运行范围有限。 李说，预计到2035年“日落”。

“因为如果我们说要在2030年之前消灭病毒性肝炎，......到那时我们的工作应该完成，”他解释道。

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