International concern is growing in medical and development circles that the Trudeau government is about to step back from its much-publicized global leadership on eradicating AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
In 2016, Trudeau announced with fanfare that Canada was contributing $804-million to the Global Fund, a 24-per-cent increase to the international organization that aims to curb the three afflictions that are now widely seen as preventable with the proper amount of medical and financial support.
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“Other countries are starting to move in that direction,” said Dr. Julio Montaner, the director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.
“My bottom line is we want Canada to be not just counted but playing a leadership role, making an early pledge and in doing so, providing an example to the rest of the world.”
Montaner’s research led to the medical breakthrough that controlled and reduced the spread of HIV-AIDS in the late 1990s: the “triple cocktail” of antiretroviral drugs that has been credited with reducing mortality across the globe.
The approach has been replicated worldwide, and is now the cornerstone of the work of the Global Fund, he said.
“I am very hopeful that Prime Minister Trudeau will make an executive decision in short order to do the right thing,” Montaner said.
“He promised me, privately, before the (2015) election that he would do so. He did so in writing … I hope that he will be consistent with that kind of approach when it comes to supporting the Global Fund.”