Mr. Speaker, in 2003, 400,000 people had access to antiretroviral treatment to fight HIV/AIDS. Today, there are 17 million people who have access to this treatment.
This huge increase is thanks to the efforts of The Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria.
I am incredibly proud that our government is contributing to this effort to the tune of $804 million and was able to raise nearly $13 billion, which will help save eight million lives.
Young people, like Ahmed Habré, Loyce Maturu and Ashley Murphy, who are strong activists because they have access to treatment, made it clear that our legacy to future generations has to be the eradication of these diseases by 2030.
HIV and TB disproportionately affect the world's most poor and most vulnerable. As Mark Dybul of The Global Fund said, we can beat these epidemics, we just need to be “better humans”.
It was for the sake of the millions of people in the world suffering from HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria that people gathered in Montreal last weekend with the goal of putting an end to these epidemics for good.