Pledge aid or deprive Commonwealth’s poorest in diseases fight, UK warned

Countries will face ‘very acute and difficult trade-offs if we don’t get the resources we need’, said Peter Sands, the fund’s executive director. Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

Some of the poorest countries in the Commonwealth may be left unable to deploy cutting-edge UK innovations against three of the world’s deadliest diseases if Britain fails to give generously to a key international fund, the UK government has been warned.

Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said the combined death toll from the diseases could be halved in the next four years in the countries where the fund invests.