Global Fund Hit by Millions of Dollars in Malaria Drug Thefts [-Theft also took place in Cambodia]

April 20, 2011 at 3:26 PM EDT
By: Talea Miller
PBS Newshour (USA)

Millions of dollars worth of malaria medication donated through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria may have been lost to theft, according to internal documents obtained by the Associated Press.

The Global Fund confirmed to AP an estimated $2.5 million worth of malaria drugs may have been taken from Togo, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and Cambodia between 2009 and 2011. Potential theft was also found in eight other countries, most in Africa, according to the documents.

The fund has been investigating malaria medication shipments stolen and sold for profit for months -- in September, a spokesperson told the NewsHour a probe was ongoing in several countries -- but the scale is far larger than the tens of thousands of dollars originally suspected.