CP: UN envoy decries Canada’s suspension of funding to develop AIDS vaccine

[tuvor]

WINNIPEG — Canada appears to have pulled the plug on funding to one of the largest AIDS vaccine development agencies in the world, says the Winnipeg Free Press in a report out of Ottawa.

Stephen Lewis, former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, is calling the development “unconscionable.”

Between 2001 and 2008, the Canadian International Development Agency contributed nearly $80 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, one of the biggest backers of HIV vaccine trials in the developing world. Canada was one of IAVI’s major funders.

In 2009, Canada contributed nothing to the organization and said funding was under review. There was no money again in this year’s federal budget and no decision on whether IAVI will ever receive Canadian funding again.

...

http://www.ngnews.ca/News/Canada---World/2010-03-30/article-974789/UN-envoy-decries-Canada%26rsquo%3Bs-suspension-of-funding-to-develop-AIDS-vaccine/1

[ZeitgeistObserver]

1. Sounds like it's dead.

$88M AIDS vaccine plant plan scuttled
By JOHN MINER, QMI AGENCY
Last Updated: 26th January 2010, 10:02pm

LONDON, Ont. - The federal government appears to have nixed plans to build an $88-million HIV vaccine plant in Canada.
Four Canadian cities had submitted bids to build Canada's HIV vaccine plant, with the help of a $28-million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. But a phone call late Friday evening from the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada ground everything to a halt.

"My understanding is there will be no facility built," Ted Hewitt, vice-president of research at the University of Western Ontario, said Tuesday. "The $88 million that was allocated for the construction of the HIV vaccine pilot plant will now be taken off the table or allocated for other purposes."

Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer and head of the Public Health Agency of Canada, informed the university that their bid had been rejected in a phone call late Friday.

Hewitt said he's also learned from contacts in other cities that the other applicants were also rejected.
Winnipeg, Peterborough and Laval, Que. were the other contenders for the project.
But while everyone seems to know that the bids were rejected, nobody seems to know why.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/01/26/12624506-qmi.html

[tuvor]

3. Welcome to DU, ZeitgeistObserver!

:hi:

[ZeitgeistObserver]

4. Thank you!

:hi:

[tuvor]

2. self-delete