Another victim of the credit crunch: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Last week Rajat Gupta, the chairman of the fund’s board, warned the international meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that “the global fund is not immune to the environment today of the global financial crisis” (AFP).

Currently the gap between the cost of programmes eligible for funding and the funds pledged by nations is about $5 billion for the months up to 2011 (Christian Science Monitor, NY Times).

Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, can see where some of the money can come from. He thinks the US government should take back the alleged $18 billion in bonuses Wall Street bankers are getting (NY Times).

“Those bonuses are being paid out of our bailout funds,” he says (LA Times). “I suggest the U.S. government reclaim that funding and put the money into the Global Fund immediately.”

And Eve Odete, Oxfam’s Pan-Africa Policy Officer, is warning of a “possible reduction in social spending as the global financial crisis is likely to hit Africa hardest this year” (Reuters). Given that we’re just printing money at the moment, it shouldn’t be too hard for the world’s treasuries to run off a few extra notes should it?