Mr. Speaker, today is World AIDS Day.
Seven thousand five hundred people will be infected with HIV, and five thousand five hundred will die of AIDS. Every day, more new infections occur than new people receive treatment.
Highly active antiretroviral therapy with a full array of contraceptive options would halt the pandemic's progress in its steps, but only if AIDS is not treated in isolation. To accomplish this, maternal care, infant care, HIV-AIDS treatment, and tuberculosis management must be integrated. This means the international community must invest in primary health care systems, health care workers, diagnostics, meds, clean water and power. Doing this would enable us to arrest the pandemic and treat 85% of the people who walk through a clinic's door.
Canada is hosting the G8 summit in 2010. Let us put primary health care at the top of the agenda, for this is the most effective way to save the lives of millions of people who die every year from entirely preventable causes.