Stefano Vella, infectious diseases specialist, world-renowned global health expert and vice-president for Italy of the Friends of the Global Fund Europe, together with journalist Roberto Palladino tell us how and when the Global Fund was born, the most extraordinary result of the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001, a summit that unfortunately went into history for the sad events of the violence of the Black Block and the forces of order.

Stefano Vella, president of the International AIDS Society at the time, had the idea of taking the international AIDS conference to Africa so that the world could become truly aware of the problem. There in Durban, in the heart of the epidemic, researchers, clinicians, doctors, Heads of State, patients and activists met together for the first time and, thanks also to the help of Nelson Mandela, the idea of the Global Fund was born. The first Fund to combat the major pandemics of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which today, as then, afflict the populations of the poorest countries on the planet and which, to date, has saved over 38 million people. Professor Vella, starting from AIDS, brings us to the current Covid-19 emergency, and illustrates what is still today the very important role of the Global Fund. And he talks about the current challenges – in particular in this year of Italian Presidency of the G20 – and the future ones, to face other possible viruses.

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