Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring to the attention of the House a recent agreement between the foundation run by the former president of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize winner and the pharmaceutical company Aventis to fight tuberculosis in South Africa.
The purpose of this joint initiative of the Mandela Foundation and Aventis Pharma is to increase the country's rate of detection and treatment based on standards established by the World Health Organization, and to set up the infrastructure needed to educate health professionals and patients on the need to ensure the continuity of treatments.
Aventis has made a commitment to support this important project and inject close to $20 million Canadian over a five year period.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation was established in September 1999 to expand and formalize the work Nelson Mandela has done throughout his life. The foundation focuses its efforts on three primary sectors: democracy, education and health.
I congratulate them on this partnership.