Bill Gates, left, speaks during a news conference with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Feb. 20, 2007.CHRIS WATTIE
More than six months after its controversial decision to scrap a planned $88-million vaccine plant, Ottawa is renewing its partnership with the Gates Foundation in the fight against HIV and AIDS, this time pledging to redirect the unspent millions to research and to halting the spread of the disease between mother and child.
The initiative will be announced Tuesday morning while the international spotlight is on this week's AIDS conference in Vienna.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper - with Bill Gates at his side - promised three years ago to direct $111-million toward the search for a vaccine, but that effort went off the rails earlier this year when his government announced its main project - a plant to produce small batches of vaccine for clinical trials - was no longer needed. The four finalists in the running to build the facility were told none of the bids met the government's criteria. The decision provoked accusations of political interference and was reviewed by the House of Commons health committee.
Ottawa has chosen a different tack this time, stressing the need to co-ordinate efforts among Canadian researchers, industry and international organizations. With that aim in mind, it is creating an alliance to oversee research spending that will include representatives from industry and the Gates Foundation, as well as federal ministries. The government is earmarking $7-million for this task.
"If we build on the partnerships in the global community and in Canada, I think we will have better success," federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said in an interview from Vienna, adding the new structure will "bring in an international network of researchers."
In all, the federal government is devoting $60-million over five years to the new plan - the same sum it intended to spend on the vaccine plant - with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation contributing up to $28-million. While all the money is under the government's Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative, under this revamped model, half of Ottawa's spending - $30-million - will go to the Canadian International Development Agency to prevent mother-to-child transmission, rather than vaccine development.
Ms. Aglukkaq defended the switch in direction, citing research from the Gates Foundation that concluded there was no longer a need for the vaccine facility. Since the cancellation of that project, the government has worked with the foundation, she said, to figure out where it could reinvest the money.
"This is an area that was identified as a need within Canada as well as the international community and a real opportunity for us," explained the minister, who said no study was done to develop the new strategy. "The need is we don't have a vaccine. We don't need to do a study to determine that."
Speaking to the International AIDS Conference Monday, Mr. Gates stressed the need for efficiency in order to make the best use of limited dollars.
Alan Bernstein, a Canadian who heads the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, said he is pleased the federal money is still being spent on HIV/AIDS, even if some of it will not go to vaccine development. "All of us want one thing, which is to stop this epidemic," he said from Vienna. "Stopping mother-to-child transmission is a powerful, proven form of prevention. How can we not support that?"
The partnership with the Gates Foundation is important strategically for the country and Canadian researchers, he said, because it provides a link to one of the world's largest funders of global health. He also hopes it will be a model that other nations will follow in order to broaden the base of financial support for HIV/AIDS research. "No one country is going to solve this problem alone," he said.
Louise Binder, chair of the Canadian Treatment Action Council, also in Vienna for the conference, charged that Ottawa is funding its international initiatives by reducing funds for domestic programs. At a time when the disease is on the increase at home and conditions are worsening among specific groups, such as aboriginal populations, she urged the federal government to restore funding.
"We have profound Canadian problems that need intervention," she said.