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.
Let me first of all express my sincere thanks to Canada. Canada has been one of the founding members of the Global Fund. As we will hear later on, some of the important meetings leading to the creation of the Global Fund happened here in Canada.
Canada is one of the largest donors to the Global Fund and is represented on our board. I'm delighted to be here with Mr. Stevenson, who is representing Canada on our board. Canada is involved in the Global Fund in many different ways. We want to thank you for your continued support.
I have prepared a couple of slides. I will not talk to all of them. I just want to focus on a couple of key results. Also, just over the last couple of weeks, there have been some important reports coming out that are worth focusing on.
The Global Fund was created exactly 10 years ago to mobilize significant resources to support countries in their comprehensive programs against these three diseases. I think we've made significant progress over the years.
We have three so-called top indicators. That means we measure continuously how many people we support on treatment and what we do on prevention. In current numbers, we are supporting 3.2 million people on AIDS treatment, people who would otherwise not be able to survive without that support. We have managed to treat more than 8 million people suffering from tuberculosis. We have helped to distribute almost 200 million insecticide-treated bed nets in the prevention of malaria. We also support many more activities. You will also see from our slide how these numbers have been going up over the last couple of years as countries have implemented very successful programs.
I have a few comments on each of the three diseases. To begin with AIDS, a report from our partner organization, UNAIDS, showed that in many countries the infection rates are finally going down now. Not only is treatment successful—many people who are receiving this treatment can lead a normal life, look after their families, and be productive members of their societies—but prevention is also working. Treatment and prevention are going hand in hand. New infections have fallen by nearly 20% in the last ten years and AIDS-related deaths are down by 20% in the last five years. I think these are significant, measurable results.
We are also strongly focusing on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission. As you know, the virus can be passed on from a pregnant woman to her baby. We have the means to prevent this and we are applying it in many countries. Altogether, we have supported one million women for the prevention of this transmission, and that has saved countless lives of children who have not become infected with HIV.
Now, for a few words about tuberculosis, on October 11, just this month, the Stop TB department of the World Health Organization issued a new report, “Global Tuberculosis Control in 2011”. That was an historic report, because for the first time in decades they could report that TB cases worldwide are falling. That was a difficult achievement. It had not been the case previously, but now we see that the number of people newly infected with tuberculosis has been falling, as has the number of people dying from tuberculosis, because we can successfully treat and cure this disease.
This success, by the way, started mainly in Asia. Many of the big Asian countries have a huge burden of tuberculosis, but now also in Africa we have the dual burden of HIV and TB infection, which is one of the big challenges in addressing tuberculosis.
Finally, probably the most dramatic is the success in malaria control. A very recent report from the Roll Back Malaria Partnership of the WHO was issued in September. It also shows that the number of deaths is going down. Numbers of countries are now reporting the elimination of malaria or reporting that they are approaching the elimination of malaria. That is a huge success. It is possible with combined treatment, distribution of nets, and mosquito control. I've personally witnessed that in a number of countries I visited this year. My background is in tropical medicine, and I've worked for more than 20 years on malaria, so to see that this deadly disease is dramatically going down in so many countries is extremely encouraging.
Last week, at a big summit hosted by the Gates Foundation, there were reports about successful trials on a malaria vaccine. That still needs to be confirmed, and it will take a few years to develop so the vaccine will be on the market, but for the first time, a vaccine candidate has proven to be effective to prevent 50% of the infections. It's an additional tool that we might have a few years from now and it really might lead to the elimination of malaria in many countries.
Altogether, these programs are having an effect on all the health-related MDGs, including child mortality: MDG 4. I have one slide here that shows the example of Tanzania, where the combined programs are now leading to a reduction in the mortality of children.
I would also like to point out here how interconnected MDGs 4, 5, and 6 are, particularly as Canada has taken the lead on maternal and child health. We would really like to applaud Canada's leadership on that. The Global Fund is contributing to all three millennium development goals: children, women, and infectious diseases.
In closing, I have just a few words about the Global Fund itself. It is exactly 10 years old. It was created after a UN General Assembly meeting in 2001 and started operating in early 2002.
We are now, in this particular period, following some reports about corruption in a number of countries that the Global Fund has been supporting, which the Global Fund itself had actually detected. It was the inspector general of the Global Fund who found out about these cases. They were reported in the media. That led us and the Global Fund board to appoint a high-level panel of eminent persons to look into the best fiduciary controls, and how the Global Fund, in its second decade, can strengthen that part of its operations.
We very strongly believe in transparency and accountability, which go hand in hand. On transparency, we make public all our disbursements and all our reports of the inspector general. We think this is one of the best preventions of corruption, but that's also why there was a lot of public discussion.
We therefore initiated a reform agenda, following the recommendations from this high-level panel. That will be discussed at a board meeting that we will hold in Ghana next month. Then we will implement the recommendations, which hopefully will strengthen the operations of the Global Fund further so we can continue to make really good progress on the three diseases.
I'll stop here. I very much welcome the discussion we are going to have later on.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.