Among the many institutions devoted to defeating diseases, there are a handful of heavyweight nonprofits that set the agenda. When one key player, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, launched in 2002, it ushered in an era of improved drug distribution for these infections. Now, as the board of the Global Fund meets in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 13 December, it will have to decide how to proceed with a predicted $1.3 billion dollar shortfall in funding needed to meet a growing battle against its target diseases.

Earlier this year, the Global Fund predicted that it would need $13 billion in funding for the next three years—$8.8 billion of which would go to maintaining current programs and $4.2 billion of which would go to expanding programs to implement new efforts in areas with a growing disease burden.

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Image of Global Fund director Michel Kazatchkine by US Mission Geneva206 via Flickr Creative Commons