The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Honourable Aileen Carroll, Minister for International Cooperation, recently announced that Canada is committing $7 million to reduce the vulnerability to HIV/AIDS of mobile populations in Southeast Asia. The funding, which will be provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), will go to a consortium made up of CARE Canada, PATH Canada, and the Canadian Society for International Health. "It is urgent that Canada and the international community act quickly to help slow and reduce the spread of this epidemic, which is endangering human security and sustainable development across this region," Minister Carroll said. "We must help Asian countries target high-risk groups before the epidemic affects much greater numbers of people in the general population." This four-year initiative, to be implemented in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, will expand HIV prevention beyond the traditional health sector and into other sectors such as transportation, labour, and agriculture. Specifically, efforts will focus on increasing the capacity of national government partners to develop and manage HIV prevention programs targeting mobile populations, particularly migrant workers. Canada is also transferring the last US$25 million allocation of its US$100 million initial commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This disbursement will help to maximize the United States' contribution to the Global Fund, which by U.S. law cannot be more than one third of the total amount contributed by all donors.
