Unitaid is a global health agency engaged in finding innovative solutions to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases more quickly, cheaply and effectively, in low- and middle-income countries. Our work includes funding initiatives to address major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, as well as HIV co-infections and co-morbidities such as cervical cancer and hepatitis C, and cross-cutting areas, such as fever management.

Unitaid is now applying its expertise to address challenges in advancing new therapies and diagnostics for the COVID-19 pandemic, serving as a key member of the Access to COVID Tools Accelerator. Unitaid is hosted by the World Health Organization.
What we do

Unitaid targets one of the biggest challenges in innovation – closing the gap between late-stage development of health products and their widespread adoption at scale. This is often a difficult process for low and middle-income countries, which face financial and logistical barriers to accessing treatments for life-threatening diseases.

Unitaid provides health partners with short-term financial grants, targeted to achieve maximum impact. Vital medicines and tools that form the backbone of global health responses today would not exist without Unitaid putting funding behind novel ideas and working with partners to scale them up.

Unitaid has directly contributed to the introduction of game-changing medicines and tools for diagnosing disease, including:

• All the HIV anti-retroviral drugs currently used in Africa, via the Medicines Patent Pool
• New paediatric medicine formulations for tuberculosis, malaria and HIV
• Specialist medication to treat or prevent malaria in children and pregnant women
• New bed nets and spray against insecticide-resistant mosquitoes
• All the medicines used to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis and all tests to detect TB viral load

Unitaid  is now on a pathway to delivering screen-and-treat solutions for preventing cervical cancer in low-and middle-income countries, pioneering innovative solutions to fever management for childhood pneumonia – the largest cause of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa – and access to oxygen in remote health centers. We are also a key player in accelerating solutions to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.