Summary

During the first 12 months of operation, GAFFI has achieved over 90% of its year 1 objectives:

• Public health: For the first time, burden of fungal disease estimates have been made for just over half the global population in 33 different countries and the rate of chronic fungal lung infection following TB in Africa in HIV positive and negative patients estimated.
• Fungal diagnostics: Six different commercial Aspergillus antibody (IgG) tests have been compared and a ‘gold standard’ test selected, commercial sources of fungal disease tests have been identified and Pneumocystis pneumonia diagnosis has been simplified through faster and simpler fungal DNA extraction from sputum in preparation for launch in low income countries.
• Antifungal treatments: Availability and costs of amphotericin B, flucytosine, fluconazole and itraconazole for most countries and availability of drug monitoring in 34 countries have been ascertained.
• Health professional education: In collaboration with its partner LIFE, the health professional education website has been translated into Spanish, several educational courses have been held in the UK, India and Brazil and advocacy efforts with the WHO, Global Fund, UNAIDS, MSF and other organizations have intensified.

GAFFI Launch

GAFFI was launched on November 6th 2013 in London and New York, in Sao Paolo on November 23rd and on January 8th 2014 in New Delhi. The meetings were all well attended and attracted press attention, especially in India, with multiple radio, television interviews and newspaper coverage.

GAFFI’s Goals

GAFFI has been in operation for 12 months from July 2013. GAFFI’s achievements against its Year 1 goals are summarised in this review.
GAFFI has 4 primary long term goals:

Goal 1 - Increase awareness of the impact of fungal disease
Goal 2 - Universal access to diagnostics for fungal disease
Goal 3 - Universal access to appropriate and affordable antifungal therapeutics with a focus on generic agents
Goal 4 - Improve education of health professionals about fungal disease.

Full review text in PDF >>

Web: http://www.gaffi.org/