Madam Speaker, I rise to support the bill in principle, and I agree with other members who have spoken about the need for urgency
Others have talked about the part of allowing a one year period for patent holders to collect fee payments, and we absolutely support that. However, I want to take an opportunity to talk about the Jean Chrétien pledge to Africa, which called for the creation of an expert advisory committee to advise on which pharmaceutical products would be on the list of drugs eligible for export. It is this part of the amendment to which I wish to speak.
It is a bit disappointing and frustrating that we are here debating the makeup of an expert advisory committee when people are dying in Africa. It is incumbent upon the House to pass this bill expeditiously. I wonder about having a debate about including the unelected Senate as equal representatives.
In the throne speech, the Prime Minister talked about there being a moral imperative to do all that we could to make medical treatment accessible to untold millions suffering from deadly infectious diseases, notably HIV-AIDS, particularly in the poorest countries of Africa. Here we are several months later, as was noted earlier, and no drugs are going to those countries for people who are the most in need.
The CBC did a story and it talked about the fact that the savings would be enormous. Brand A drugs in North America cost anywhere between $8,000 and $15,000 a person, whereas generic drugs would cost approximately $250. As we speak, these drugs are still not available to people in Africa.
According to the Médecins Sans Frontières, out of the 6 million people needing anti-retroviral treatment in developing countries, only 440,000 people currently have access to it. There is a sense of urgency that we need to get on with this. UNAIDS has released a report in which it states that about 34.3 million people, including 1.3 million children under the age of 15 years, have HIV-AIDS. In most sub-Saharan African countries, adults and children are acquiring HIV at a higher rate than ever before. The number of new infections in regions during 1999 was four million. Botswana has an infection rate of 35.8%, Zimbabwe 25.8%, and South Africa 19.9%. This is having such a wide ranging impact that in many of these countries the labour force is being decimated.
I urge the House to look at the bill quickly and to move on it so we can begin to supply drugs to these countries.