Industry committee  That's right. It's a tender process, and it also has to its benefit the bulk-buy aspects, so they can get a lot better price and insist on good quality. That's how the Global Fund actually does it, through a mechanism called the voluntary pooled procurement system, and it is actually quite highly encouraged by the Global Fund, particularly in countries where they are aware there's no infrastructure whatsoever.

Industry committee  I don't have the actual numbers of the drugs here per se. I mean, it's also bed nets. Well, maybe I do actually. No, I don't, but I can give you a quantification in terms of the actual resources. The Global Fund, until this week's replenishment, had at this point a $20 billion fund of resources over time.

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  Sure.

Industry committee  That's correct. I wanted to add to my colleague's answer a few other issues related to your earlier question. There are also issues or gaps in laboratory and diagnostic services. In some of these countries, people are misdiagnosed—quite badly misdiagnosed—for a long period of time while their real illness flourishes.

Industry committee  Canada has just recently committed an additional $30 million to the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV as part of the Canadian HIV vaccine initiative. That is one example. We have other funding with various multilateral organizations, UNICEF and the WHO, whose considerable and significant treatment programs for mothers and children in the field we have also supported.

Industry committee  The HIV vaccine at this point, unhappily, doesn't yet exist. The initiative is about providing incentives to the development of such a vaccine.

Industry committee  The prevention of the mother-to-child transmission component of that initiative was put in place. We insisted on it as a stop-gap measure while a vaccine was still under development, and we hope it will be soon, but we don't know how long that process will take. The infection rate is still approximately three million new infections every year, so CIDA felt it was important to put something in place to address the ongoing infections at the moment.

Industry committee  Yes, I'd be happy to answer that question. My colleague already provided some indication of the kinds of multilateral partners we work with. The Global Fund, which is a large multilateral fund to which Canada has just recently provided a large contribution again, spends approximately 45% of its considerable resources on bulk procurement, at good prices, of high-quality drugs.