The National AIDS Spending Assessment, known as NASA, is a very important study that provides data on the actual spending in the country for HIV/AIDS in a year from all sources. While I will not give away the very interesting findings that will be presented by the investigators, I do want to talk about domestic resources and the move towards sustained epidemic elimination in Cambodia.

Je suis très heureux d'être ici aujourd'hui pour exprimer, au nom du gouvernement et du peuple américains, notre solidarité continue aux habitants du Grand Sud dans leurs efforts pour se remettre de la dévastation du cyclone Matthew il y a six mois.

There has been important progress made in fighting TB in the last two decades, both globally and here in Cambodia, and I want to congratulate the Ministry and the National TB Program on that success. But globally TB remains a major problem. Every year over ten million people are infected, and nearly 2 million lose their lives to TB. Over 4 million of those who fall ill each year do not receive a proper diagnosis or notification of their illness, leading to drug-resistant forms of TB and longer, harsher, and more expensive treatments.

Tuberculosis, or TB, continues to be a major global health concern and one of the top 10 causes of deaths worldwide. The World Health Organization reported that during 2015, 10.4 million people became ill with TB and 1.8 million died from the disease! This indicates that globally, TB has surpassed HIV/AIDS as a major cause of mortality.