Foreign Affairs committee  You know, first of all, the Global Fund does not have any staff in these countries. That's one of the principles. We are a very lean organization. We are supposed to have just one headquarters, and we have no country staff. We are supporting national organizations, be it government or be it NGO.

Foreign Affairs committee  As Paul said, it is very good. Canada has contributed their pledged amount every year. Again, that is an important point, because until the year 2009 we had an excellent track record with all our donor countries. Usually we achieve more than 100% of pledges being converted into contributions.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sure. As you know, finding a vaccine against malaria has been one of the big public health goals for decades. There has never been a successful and effective vaccine against malaria, but trial results came out that showed a 50% protection. That's good. That's not ideal, because for a vaccine you normally want a 90% effectiveness, but for the first time, it shows there's promise.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's right.

Foreign Affairs committee  South Africa, yes, is one of the countries that, like Botswana, had some of the highest HIV prevalences in the world. That's also going down, particularly among young people. There are statistics showing that infection rates are going down among young men and women. They used to be at 25% and they're now at 18%, so that's encouraging.

Foreign Affairs committee  I've visited Botswana several times. It used to be the country with the highest HIV prevalence in the world. Ten years ago, Botswana had almost 40% prevalence of HIV in the adult population. We supported some of their early programs, which provided universal access to prevention and treatment on HIV, and now the prevalence rate is down to 22% or something.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. First, I have one comment on Europe. It's true that European donors are extremely important for the Global Fund. We are receiving about 50% of our resources from the member states of the European Union, and therefore we are very closely following the current discussion on the euro crisis.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. That's an excellent question. I also visited Ethiopia earlier this year. Ethiopia is actually the country that has received the highest amount of funding. It's a very large country in Africa, a very poor country, with one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world and with a very high disease burden.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. For the first eight years, I would say, the Global Fund indeed had sufficient resources to fund all the proposals that were presented to it. I have to say one word on that. We have an independent technical review panel. This means that all of the proposals we receive from countries are independently reviewed not by the Global Fund secretariat itself, but by international experts, and they normally recommend for funding about 50% of the proposals coming from the countries.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for inviting me to be very specific. There are two elements. There is the level of resources made available by donor countries such as Canada, and then there's predictability. Both are very important. It's the long-term predictable funding that we need. There are a few countries--such as, for example, the United Kingdom--in a position to make commitments beyond a three-year period.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks so much to all of you for being here this morning and for your continued interest in the Global Fund. It's always a pleasure for me to be here. I will present to you some of the most recent results in the fight against the three big infectious diseases--AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria--and also will make a few comments on where the Global Fund stands right now.

Foreign Affairs committee  Basically you have three interventions that you need for malaria control. First is the nets. Then there is the treatment: you eliminate the parasites in the blood of the patients, and you spray insecticide inside the houses, which also kills the mosquitoes. You're right that it's only one species of mosquito, the anopheles, that transmits the malaria, but the combination of these three interventions can basically cut that down.

Foreign Affairs committee  Again, thanks for this opportunity and the great discussion. I have one request from our side, if I may. We met this morning with the chair of the finance committee and we had a very good discussion. We understand that the finance committee made a resolution at the end of last year for increasing support from Canada to the Global Fund.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, it is primarily India, but we also buy from other emerging economies.

Foreign Affairs committee  The situation is that if a woman is infected with HIV, becomes pregnant, and is delivering a baby, and there is no treatment available, no prevention, then the risk that the baby will be infected is about 30% to 40%. However, if we give her the right drugs, the drugs that we also use for treatment, and we also provide her with alternative to breastfeeding, then we can reduce that risk to less than 2%.