Thank you so much for the question. For Zimbabwe, it's very different. The government is really not denying that there is a huge problem. I would like to highlight that over the years, a lot of people were dying because there wasn't so much support in terms of people accessing tuberculosis or HIV or malaria treatment. But because the Global Fund intervened, a lot of people are now surviving. When my mother and my younger brother passed away, the Global Fund wasn't in the country at that time. I witnessed so many deaths including my mother's and my younger brother's.
I was very fortunate to be among the thousands in Zimbabwe who managed to get access to tuberculosis treatment, which is all contributed by Canada and other donors around the world. I would like to reflect that in Zimbabwe, there are about 1.4 million people who are living with HIV, and because of the Global Fund, we are now at 1.1 million people who are on antiretroviral therapy. We can see the gap in that there's so much that needs to be done in terms of investment so that we can be able to reach those who are remaining.
Coming back to an issue as well, when you look at adolescent girls and young women, we are the ones who are disproportionately affected by the epidemic, and it's so sad that a lot of girls have to drop out of school for economic reasons, cultural reasons or child marriages that are happening especially in sub-Saharan Africa. This also puts us at risk. If you look at Zimbabwe as a country, an estimated 16,000 adolescent girls and young women are affected every year.
We know where the problems are. We know where the challenges are and we know how they're addressed but it really needs countries to really invest in the Global Fund so that it can help build strong health systems to make sure that we decrease the rate of infection among the people who are most affected.
Really there is so much that we need to step up the fight.