Canada Working with Africans to Address Infectious Diseases and Health Systems

On July 17, 2006, following the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Prime Minister Harper announced that:

• in addition to a number of commitments related to specific infectious disease initiatives for developing countries, Canada will contribute $450 million between 2006-2016 to support country-led efforts to strengthen health systems, improve health outcomes and make concrete progress towards the Millennium Development Goals in Africa.

Threats to Global Public Health
The Commitment
Demonstrating Results

Threats to Global Public Health

Tropical diseases such as West Nile Virus are moving north due to global warming. Quick travel, combined with emerging drug-resistant strains of diseases such as tuberculosis, mean that infectious diseases are truly a concern in today's global village. In Africa, the focus is on the still-growing HIV/AIDS pandemic, while the long battles against malaria, tuberculosis, and polio continue.

Health systems in Africa are struggling to contain, treat, and prevent infectious diseases. Systems are generally under-staffed and over-burdened. Africa already carries a disproportionately high percentage of the global disease burden (25 percent), yet is home to only 3 percent of the world's health care professionals.

The news is not all bad, though. Canada is committed to supporting health in Africa. The work of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), along with the efforts of other government departments, African governments and institutions, multilateral agencies, and Canadian partners, is showing results.

The spectre of an avian flu pandemic sweeping the planet has moved infectious diseases onto the G8 agenda this year. The Government of Canada's budget tabled in 2006 provided $1 billion to further improve the country's pandemic preparedness, and Canada is actively working with other countries to find ways to identify and respond to this potential threat to global public health.

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The Commitment

Canada is committed to supporting achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, a set of internationally agreed goals and targets for reducing poverty. While there are targets specifically related to halting and reversing HIV/AIDS infection rates, as well as malaria and other major diseases, all the goals are interrelated: sick people cannot farm or produce incomes or afford to send their children to school; malnourished people are more prone to infection; hungry children cannot concentrate at school even if they get there; etc.

With an awareness of the importance of long-term support to key areas in the fight against infectious diseases and poverty, CIDA more than quadrupled aid targeted at health and nutrition in Africa from 2000 to 2005. Funds for HIV/AIDS were more than tripled during the same time.

Budget 2006 further committed up to $250 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to fund activities to prevent and treat these diseases, and up to $45 million to support the Global Polio Eradication Initiative through funding to the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

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Demonstrating Results

Over two-thirds of the people living with HIV/AIDS in the world are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Canada's work in the fight against HIV/AIDS is multifaceted. For example:

• A $45 million contribution supports the work of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) to mobilize support through advocacy and education, encourage private-sector companies to participate in AIDS vaccine development, and ensure global access to new vaccines. There are currently 30 test vaccines in clinical trials worldwide.
• Canada's support to Mozambique has significantly increased access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in that country: the number of sites offering ART expanded from 12 in 2004 to 34 in 2005, and the number of people on ART trebled from 6,500 in 2004 to 19,726 in 2005. Treatment for children was also given priority, with the number of health facilities with pediatric treatment service increasing from five in 2004 to 21 in 2005, and the number of children on ART increasing from 500 in 2004 to over 1,600 in 2005.

HIV/AIDS is only one of many health and development challenges tackled by Canada's official assistance program.

Each year, approximately 300 to 500 million malaria infections lead to over one million deaths, of which over 75 percent occur in African children under the age of 5. In 2006 alone, CIDA's support to the Canadian Red Cross helped the organization to distribute some 1.7 million long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets in Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, and Sierra Leone. Studies have shown that for every 1,000 children who sleep under a treated bed net, the number of deaths is reduced by six, meaning that these bed nets will probably save the lives of about 12,000 children.

Canada is also a long-time supporter of the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control, which in 2005 saw more than 35 million vulnerable persons in 14 countries treated with ivermectin to prevent or control the effects of the parasite that causes river blindness, an increase of 7.2 percent over 2004. In West Africa, Canada's contributions have prevented 600,000 cases of river blindness.

CIDA is a strong supporter of polio eradication. For example, thanks to Canada's contributions, only 10 states in Nigeria reported polio in March 2006, down from 30 states in 2004.

In Mali, improvements in vaccination rates have partly contributed to the dropping of mortality rates of children under 5 since 1990. For example, in 2005 in the Kayes region in northern Mali, vaccine coverage increased to 80 percent from 69 percent the previous year. Further, 100 percent of children were vaccinated against polio. No cases of measles were reported in 2005.

Finally, new information technologies are being used for epidemiological monitoring. By putting in place an early warning system, this regional project is decreasing mortalities caused by potential epidemics in five countries in West Africa.