Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
I'm Kenyan. I live and work in Kenya, currently with HIV-infected individuals.
Kenya has a population of 38.5 million people; 1.4 million are living with HIV/AIDS. Out of that group, we've currently started 406,000 of them on antiretrovirals, with a current...[Inaudible--Editor].
My interest in this bill is because...[Technical difficulty--Editor].
By 2001, we had only 1,000 antiretrovirals. By 2005, about 10,000. These were drugs from big pharma. By 2005, PEPFAR came in with funds and some money came from the Canadian government. From the generics, we now have 406,000 people who are taking antiretrovirals.
If it were not for the generics, many Kenyans would have died.