OTTAWA — AIDS activists are pressuring the Trudeau government to renew its support for fighting infectious diseases overseas after an embarrassing conference in Montreal that left the sector worried that Canada will fail.
OTTAWA — AIDS activists are pressuring the Trudeau government to renew its support for fighting infectious diseases overseas after an embarrassing conference in Montreal that left the sector worried that Canada will fail.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will attend a pledging conference for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in New York.
Canada is one of the fund’s biggest supporters and has pledged $4 billion since 2002.
Countries replenish the fund every three years, with their contributions typically increasing over time as health systems build more capacity to treat and prevent these diseases.
In each cycle, civil society groups issue what they call a fair share metric to reflect how much each rich country can reasonably pledge to help the fund meet its goals.
This spring, Canadian advocates called on Trudeau to commit $1.2 billion.
Since then, the US, Germany and Japan have announced funding that has responded to requests from local groups.
Elise Lego, Canadian director of the ONE Campaign, an international non-governmental organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, said anything less than $1.2 billion would result in preventable deaths.
“Prime Minister Trudeau cannot replace the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria because this is a fight we can win,” she said.
The fund supports developing countries in curbing and treating the three preventable diseases that are among the leading causes of death in many regions.
Trudeau has supported the fund in the past, including in 2016 when he spoke alongside Zimbabwean activist Lois Mathuru.
Mathuru lost his mother and brother in 2003 to AIDS and tuberculosis. She contracted both diseases and says Canada’s contributions funded programs that brought her back from the brink of death. The 30-year-old already plans to have children.
“I would really like to thank the Canadian government for being a traditional donor under the Global Fund, because it has really saved millions of lives and I am one of the lives that have been saved,” Mathuru said from New York, where she plans to press Trudeau to increase Canada’s contribution.
The World Health Organization reported that tuberculosis deaths rose in 2020 for the first time in more than a decade as governments focused on containing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Malaria deaths followed a similar pattern, while HIV patients reported treatment interruptions that stopped the virus from progressing to AIDS.
Mathuru said these trends have survivors like her worried about Canada’s reluctance to announce its funding until the last minute.
“It’s really hard and we’re just crossing our fingers,” she said.
Groups like the ONE Campaign called on the Liberals to unveil Canada’s commitment at the 2022 international AIDS conference in Montreal in July.
The government did not make an announcement and International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan canceled his appearance at the conference, with his office citing “operational issues”.
At the time, Ottawa came under fire for not issuing travel visas to HIV experts and advocates from African countries, prompting some speakers to accuse Canada of racism. The International AIDS Society said it will review whether to hold future conferences in Canada.
Sajjan’s office said last Friday that another Global Fund pledge was forthcoming, but did not provide any details.
“We will continue to support the Global Fund, which is Canada’s largest investment in global health,” spokeswoman Haley Hodgson wrote.
“Minister Sajjan recognizes how important the Seventh Replenishment of the Global Fund is to achieving our collective global goals to defeat HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.”
During the last round of fund contributions in 2019, the Trudeau government increased its contribution after weeks of sustained pressure. At the time, Ottawa did not dispute rumors that it would stick with the same amount of funding it announced in 2016.
Lego said the fund had made “amazing progress” towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030.
According to UNAIDS, the United Nations’ joint program on HIV/AIDS, AIDS-related deaths have declined by 68 percent since a peak in 2004 and by 52 percent since 2010.
“Twenty years ago, AIDS headlines were terrible; many African countries were so affected that life expectancy was on a downward trend because of the disease, with no end in sight,” Lego said.
“The fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria is one of the great unsung success stories of the century.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on September 19, 2022.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
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