$1.1 billion of new grants will be handed out over the next two years to fund the fight against three diseases that collectively claim more than 6 million lives every year.

Programs backed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are estimated to have averted the deaths of 2 million people by providing AIDS treatment for 1.1 million people, tuberculosis treatment for 2.8 million people and distributing some 30 million insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria.

This is the first time since the Fund was established in 2002 that it has passed $1 billion mark in approving new grants, the Executive Director, Michel Kazatchkine, said after a meeting of the Fund's Board in Kunming, China.

Projects devoted to tackling AIDS account for 48 per cent of approved proposals this year, while malaria projects comprise 42 percent and tuberculosis projects 10 percent.

More than 80 percent of overall funding went to projects in low-income countries, mostly in Africa. For the first time, an AIDS prevention program in the occupied Palestinian territory of West Bank and the Gaza Strip received money from the Fund.

Since its founding the Fund has now awarded over $10 billion to projects in 136 countries.