Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of the UK in ending malaria and neglected tropical diseases.

Thank you, Mrs Harris, and a very happy new year to you too. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this debate, and to the hon. Members from across the House who supported the bid, not all of whom have been able to make it here today. I think a few folk are stuck in traffic or whatever, so perhaps we will see some more faces as the debate goes on. I am very grateful to everyone who has come here to take part.

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Last year I and a number of colleagues visited Malawi with the all-party parliamentary group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases to learn more about the efforts to end these diseases, and to see at first hand the impact of UK investment on those efforts. I will draw on that experience in my contribution today.

We are particularly grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate now, because at the end of this month, on Tuesday 30 January, we will mark World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day—a day designated by the World Health Organisation to raise awareness of the challenge and the opportunity that we have to eliminate many of these deadly diseases. It will be the first such awareness day of the calendar year, and the fourth time that that particular day has been marked. This year’s theme is “Unite. Act. Eliminate.” It challenges decision makers and those in positions of power—including everyone taking part in this debate—to work together to mobilise the resources necessary to eliminate malaria and other neglected tropical diseases.

Debates such as this about international development can be full of acronyms, and we will no doubt hear today references to many of them, including SDGs, sustainable development goals; spending on ODA, official development assistance; and WHO, the World Health Organisation. Acronyms can be a useful shorthand, but we have to be careful that we do not reduce what we are discussing to technical or abstract concepts. When we talk about NTDs—neglected tropical diseases—we are not talking just about a group of 21 diseases that exist in test tubes or Petri dishes in a laboratory somewhere. These diseases are having an impact on the daily lives of 1.7 billion people around the world—nearly one in five of the global population. They can cause immense suffering, disability and disfigurement, and are often fatal. In many ways, it is not just the diseases that are neglected; the people affected by them are also, by definition, being neglected.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate. He rightly says that we should not be distracted by the statistics, but given the fact that one in five people on the planet is affected, it is important that we remember that many of these diseases are entirely preventable if the right action is taken as early as possible.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. I think that the point he makes will come through in all the contributions and evidence that we hear today.

The evidence shows that, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, it is the poorest and most vulnerable and marginalised people in remote communities, and particularly women and girls, who are affected most by these diseases. For example, noma, which was added to the WHO’s list of NTDs just a few weeks ago, in December, is a severe gangrenous disease of the mouth and face that primarily affects malnourished children between the ages of two and six years in regions of extreme poverty. Hookworm, a type of soil-transmitted helminth, affects one in three pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa and can cause anaemia and lead to death during pregnancy. Schisto-somiasis, or bilharzia, which is slightly easier to say, is very common in Malawi, where we visited; it can lead to female genital schistosomiasis, of which there are 56 million cases worldwide, which can triple the risk of HIV and cause infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and in some cases maternal death.

The human cost of these diseases is incredibly high. On our visit to Malawi, in the Salima district we met a number of people who had lived with trachoma, a bacterial infection that can cause eyelashes to draw in, damaging eyesight and even causing blindness. People affected in that way can very easily lose their independence, and their family and friends have to dedicate time and resources to caring for them. If it is caught early, trachoma can be treated with antibiotics or surgery, and it can be prevented by good water and sanitation for health practices. The key lesson, which the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) just mentioned, is that trachoma can be eliminated altogether. That gives us another acronym, SAFE: surgery to treat the blinding stage of the disease, antibiotics to clear the infection, facial cleanliness and hand hygiene to help reduce transmission, and environmental improvements to help stop the infection spreading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I completely agree with his point. I said beforehand to my colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), that in the past year there have been reports, in southern England anyway, of mosquitoes that we had never had before. The threat level cannot be ignored in this country. He is right to underline the need to address climate change. To be fair, the Government have a commitment on that. It is important to work together collectively politically across the United Kingdom, Europe and the world, to try to address these issues. He rightly says that we cannot ignore them.

Global aid funding cuts not only have affected developing countries, which need our help, but lead to a knock-on effect for British citizens travelling globally. Looking at the title of the debate—malaria and neglected tropical diseases—we must acknowledge travel is easier to achieve now, and with that comes the potential threat. For example, since foreign development aid was cut, there has been an increase in malaria cases globally. I have no empirical evidence that the two are linked, but I believe that is noteworthy and should be acknowledged.

Africa accounts for the majority of global cases of malaria. According to the World Malaria Report 2023, there were 249 million malaria cases in 85 malaria-endemic countries. The hon. Member for Glasgow North also referred to that. It is so important that we grasp the magnitude of this problem.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the frustrating part of this issue of neglected tropical diseases is that a straightforward partial solution would be the greater availability of clean drinking water, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa? That would not solve all the problems, but many of them.

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the past, there have been debates on water aid in this Chamber. If the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) were participating in the debate, she would have brought her knowledge from her involvement with Christian Aid and other charitable organisations. Their advertisements on TV always mention clean water, so we have a massive role to play there too.

On 14 December 2023, the UK Health Security Agency published provisional UK case numbers for 2022-23 up to October that suggested that there were 250 more cases in the first nine months of 2023 than in the whole of 2022, and that the case total in 2023 was higher than the average between 2010 and 2019 of 1,612. That upward trend is discouraging. That is despite preliminary data from the Office for National Statistics suggesting that UK resident visits abroad remain lower than pre-covid-19 pandemic levels. Travel destination data for this year is not yet available. I am not sure whether the Minister is able to provide that, but it would be good to get some figures. If we cannot get them today, will she pass them on to those who have participated in the debate?

In previous years, the majority of cases where the travel history was known were acquired in Africa—particularly western Africa—by travellers visiting friends and relatives. In my constituency—I know this is true for my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry and others, including the hon. Member for Glasgow North—I have a large number of church groups and non-governmental organisations that work across Africa. Nearly every church has a missionary connection with Africa, so people travel there maybe once a year—certainly, every couple of years.

The rise in the number of cases, despite travel intensity lessening, is a worrying trend that must be addressed, alongside the reinstatement of our foreign aid. The hon. Member for Glasgow North referred to the 0.7% target, and I support that 100%, as others do. I know the Minister is keen to respond positively. I am ever mindful that she is not in charge of the money, but I want to underline the issue. We need investment in malaria research, and we must make cheap and reliable medication available.

The last time I went to an area with high malaria levels—Nigeria—my wife was able to order malaria tablets online from the local Boots pharmacy. I am not promoting Boots; I just went there and collected the tablets. It is great to have that facility available. I only knew that the medication was necessary when one of my staff members looked up the area and told me. Information about the spread of malaria in certain countries is not readily available. Perhaps flight tickets should come with a warning. They could say, “Your bag must weigh under 23 kg and you really should get your malaria tablets.” There are some things we could do from a practical point of view. There is no 100% effective vaccine for malaria, but there is medication that massively reduces its severity. The official advice is that a combination of preventive measures provides significant protection against malaria.

This is not solely an issue for travellers; we have a moral obligation to tackle malaria. I believe that is the motivation of the hon. Gentleman; it is certainly my motivation for being here. The restrictions on travel and aid due to the covid pandemic demonstrate halting those steps had a detrimental effect. In 2020 and 2021, there was significant disruption to malaria services, such as the distribution of bed nets, which the hon. Gentleman referred to. That caused a spike not just in malaria incidence but mortality rates.

In 2022, $4.1 billion was invested globally to fight malaria—far short of the World Health Organisation’s $7.8 billion target. Before I look globally to ask other nations to step up to the mark, I look to my own Minister and Government and ask what else we can do right here, right now to assure others across the world that we will not simply increase funding but ensure that none of the funding is wasted and that it goes directly towards meeting the need.