Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will do the beginning of my presentation in French and then switch to English.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Hervé Verhoosel. I represent the Roll Back Malaria partnership at the UN. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has made the fight against malaria a priority of his second mandate. Canada’s priority in maternal, newborn and child health is perfectly aligned with this priority of the UN secretary general to fight malaria.

It is important for the UN and for the Roll Back Malaria partnership to stress the public-private partnership. I gather that, here in Canada, there is also some interest in involving the private sector in development and in health. That is what we are doing by gathering around the same table donor countries, endemic countries, research and development organizations like the Medicines for Malaria Venture, represented here by Andrea, NGOs, and those from the private sector in order to better coordinate the fight against malaria.

Worldwide we have 3.2 billion people at risk of malaria. Almost half of the world's population is at risk of developing malaria, and we have a bit less than 200 million cases of malaria every year. We have 584,000 deaths.

Also, what's amazing is that we can prevent and cure the disease. We have everything today, all the tools, basically to save 584,000 people in the world a year. Sub-Saharan Africa is affected by 90% of the burden of malaria.

Knowing that we have everything to prevent and cure the disease, what we need is political leadership both in endemic countries and in donor countries. With the new United Nations development goals that member states are developing now for the UN, we hope that malaria will keep an important place on the agenda in the future. We are a bit sorry that for the next G-7 malaria is not directly there anymore. But we hope to work with Japan and we hope to have the support of Canada for the next G-7 to put malaria back on the agenda in the future.

It was important for us, in cooperation with the APF, to ask one of your colleagues to come, because maybe I'm not the best witness for you, coming from my desk in New York. Who better than a senator coming from an endemic country, who is also a pharmacist and an economist, to speak with you about the burden every day in his country? That's why, with your permission, Mr. Chair, I would like to take less than seven minutes and maybe ask the senator to speak a tiny bit more than seven minutes.

As some of you do, I very often travel in Africa, and every time I witness the burden on the socio-economic development of the country. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who is an economist, calculated a few years ago that Africa loses $12 billion every year just in lost productivity. The senator, I assume, will come back to that. Just because people are not at work and they are sick at home, $12 billion is lost in productivity.

Malaria is also the first cause of preventable absenteeism at school for both the children and the teachers. The senator will be able to develop that also.

There are a lot of links between malaria and development in general and, of course, maternal, newborn, and child health.

We really hope to have the support of the Parliament of Canada, the House of Commons of Canada, to keep Canada on track as a supporter of the Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB, and Malaria. Canada has contributed $2.1 billion to the Global Fund since it was launched, including $650 million for 2014 to 2016. Next year Japan will host the next Global Fund replenishment meeting.

I can tell you that today it is an organization that's working well and the money that the Global Fund puts at the disposal of countries is working and is giving results. Since 2000 we have cut in two the numbers of both deaths and cases of malaria. We've cut it in half. That's amazing. We have received half of the money we were asking for from the international community and we have delivered half of the results. We are very much on track and we hope to have the understanding of countries like Canada, and your own understanding as members of this Parliament, that the fight against malaria is a good investment and it gives value for money.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.