Canada's Time to Deliver

Check out this article in the London Free Press on the Global AIDS Crisis: Four Steps for Canada plan released in the run-up to the International AIDS conference in Toronto next week. The four steps include:

1. A timetable to boost Canada's development assistance to 0.7% of gross national income;
2. Investing in the healthcare systems of developing countries;
3. Cancelling these countries' debts so they can free up resources to fight HIV/AIDS;
4. Following through on commitments to make ARV drugs more affordable.

In other news, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $500m to the Global Fund to fight diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Microsoft's software may be annoying and evil, but at least some of the money is going somewhere good.

And Ontario's chief medical officer has pointed to an alarming rise in the AIDS epidemic in Ontario, citing complacency as the chief cause. Dr Sheela Basrur said: "There is a sense that AIDS is no longer newsworthy. For the average person on the street, they may be more worried about bird flu than HIV." See my earlier post on bird flu - nice to know someone agrees.