BRUSSELS, May 31 (Reuters) - The European Commission plans to give 400 million euros ($537 million) to an international fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria over four years, it said on Thursday. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, launched by the Group of Eight industrialized nations (G8), is financed largely by the U.S. and European governments. The EU's executive announced a 100-million-euro grant, and will ask EU governments and the European Parliament for the green light to give another 300 million euros for 2008-2010, it said in a statement. The five-year-old fund said earlier this month that as of May 1 between 1 million and 1.1 million people had received AIDS drugs through its efforts, up from 544,000 a year ago. More than 2.8 million people have been treated for TB and around 30 million families received bed nets under Global Fund efforts since it started its work in 2002, the group said. More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since the disease, which devastates the body's immune system, was first recognized about a quarter of a century ago. Malaria kills about one million people annually, mostly young children. Tuberculosis kills an estimated 1.6 million people a year. The European Commission said it had provided the fund with 522 million euros over the past five years. The announcement of further EU cash comes as rights groups accuse rich nations of having failed to keep promises of financial aid to Africa, ahead of next week's G8 summit.
