Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I thank the witnesses for coming today.
I was listening to Mr. Masse's comments, the focus on “Making CAMR Work”, and talking about what the officials said or didn't say before the last meeting. I guess I heard differently than what Mr. Masse was hearing. I heard the officials say it wasn't so much that CAMR wasn't working, it was more about the fact that there are other things that are actually working better.
I think back to the invention of the car. Obviously when the car was invented, people stopped using horses and carriages. That didn't mean horses and carriages didn't work; it just meant there was a better solution for moving people around. And eventually people stopped using horses and carriages.
In this circumstance I see that we have 400,000 people who were treated in 2003, 1.3 million in 2005, and it will be 5.2 million people by the end of 2010. We're making progress, largely because it sounds as though the global fund is being used to buy drugs from India. And for whatever reason, drugs are being supplied by India cheaper than they're being supplied by other countries, including Canada under CAMR. To me, the fact that the number of people being treated is going up as quickly as it is is a good thing.
The first question I would have is this. In regard to India, if it enacted its patent legislation in 2005, and if most of the drugs being supplied to Africa are coming from India, why has the number of people being treated with these drugs gone up from 1.3 million to 5.2 million? I just want a comment on those numbers.