Mr. Speaker, today is World Tuberculosis Day. The theme is TB anywhere is TB everywhere. The reason is obvious. TB is spread by breathing, what all humans do every second of every day. In 2005, 1.6 million people died of TB.
We in Canada generally assume that TB is no longer a problem, but it is, and it is particularly true for the world's poorest.
I joined fellow MPs and Results Canada to visit Kenya in January. In the Mukuru slum, we visited TB patients in their eight foot by eight foot homes in communities where open sewage lines the streets and families sleep in shifts in absolute squalor.
It defies logic and violates any code of human decency for the rich nations of the world to allow people to die of TB. The cost of drugs is cheap and the drugs are effective. We know how to diagnose and how to treat. The root cause of course is poverty.
Canada has played an effective role and must play an increased role in eradicating this disease that needlessly kills our fellow human beings and destroys their families.