The Global AIDS Crisis - Four Steps for Canada
"Nothing
in my adult life prepared me for the carnage of HIV/AIDS."
Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS
Over 40 million
people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS, half of them are women.
Nearly all live in poor countries and are unable to get the treatment
and care they need. Since 1981, more than 25 million people have
died of AIDS - 3 million last year alone. Over 13,000 people are
infected daily with young people especially at risk. Half of all
new infections occur among 15 to 24 year olds with young women
being 2 to 6 times as likely to be infected as young men.
In recognition
of Toronto hosting the 16th International AIDS Conference, August
13-18, Oxfam has joined with a broad coalition of social justice
groups, the Global Treatment Access Group (GTAG), to develop a
common "civil society platform for action" that highlights
four areas in which Canada should take action to help address
the global AIDS crisis:
- Pay our
fair share of prevention and treatment in developing countries. - Invest
in the public health care systems of developing countries. - Cancel
the debts of developing countries to free up resources to fight
AIDS and poverty. - Follow
through on commitments to make medicines affordable to developing
countries
To pay its
fair share to cover the cost of HIV prevention, care, treatment
and support programs Canada should increase its contribution to
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria to 5% of total need.
This would require an additional CDN$140 million for 2006-07.
As Stephen Lewis has stated, "there is no other international
financial vehicle dealing with AIDS that reaches so many people
in so many diverse countries."
An essential prerequisite for improving health and fighting disease
is a functioning public, not-for-profit, health care system. Crumbling
infrastructure, chronic under-financing, workforce attrition,
and migration of health care workers have eroded health systems
in many developing countries, even as the burden of disease has
increased. Canada must invest its aid dollars in rebuilding the
public health systems of poor countries.
On average, African governments spend on debt service three times
per capita what they spend on health care. Of the ten countries
with the highest levels of HIV infection, only two - Zambia and
Mozambique - will benefit initially from the debt relief plan
promised by the G8 in 2005. By mid-2006, the plan will remove
only 13% of the debts of the 62 countries most burdened by AIDS,
debt and poverty. Canada should broaden debt relief to all countries
that need it.
The cost of medicines is a major obstacle to achieving universal
treatment. In 2004, Parliament unanimously passed an act to help
developing countries obtain more affordable generic medicines
from Canadian manufacturers. Since the law came into effect in
May 2005, not a single generic drug has left Canada as a result.
Next year's Parliamentary review must reform the law to make it
work.
Make no mistake the AIDS epidemic can be beaten. Local actions
can lead to global solutions. Help send a message to the Canadian
Government . Join
Oxfam Canada's online petition to the Canadian Government.
To view the Global Treatment Access Group (GTAG) platform for
action visit www.aidslaw.ca/Maincontent/issues/cts/GTAGplatform2006.htm
