Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I agree that we should be incredibly proud of the work that we have done with regard to the vaccine.

I have had meetings with my Philippine counterparts on vaccines, alongside AstraZeneca. We are supporting equitable access through our funding for the COVAX facility. We are one of the largest donors to the COVAX advance market commitment to support access for 92 developing countries; we have committed £548 million. COVAX’s partners, which include Gavi, the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, have huge experience in supporting developing country immunisation systems and the programming of immunisation. We expect the initial roll-out to COVAX AMC countries to start in the first quarter of this year.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

What progress the Government have made through international co-operation on tackling antimicrobial resistance.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Wendy Morton)]

The UK is a global leader in promoting action on antimicrobial resistance. It is an international priority. We helped achieve the 2016 UN political declaration on AMR, and UK aid contributes significantly to AMR efforts around the world. This includes our flagship Fleming fund, which builds capacity on AMR in lower and middle-income countries, focusing on investments in water, sanitation and hygiene; healthcare facilities; and broader health systems strengthening.

[Kevin Hollinrake [V]]

A leading Oxford-based professor of microbiology today described covid as “the short, sharp earthquake” and antimicrobial resistance as

“the massive tsunami in the background.”

On the basis that AMR in pigs and chickens has trebled in developing nations since 2000, will my hon. Friend press for more action to limit the unnecessary use of antibiotics in humans, pigs and chickens?

[Wendy Morton]

This is a really important point. My hon. Friend has taken a keen interest in this topic for some time in this place. We absolutely recognise the risks to human health of the inappropriate use of antimicrobials in agriculture and food production, as seen through our national action plan. The vast majority of global antimicrobial use, as he will probably be aware, is in agriculture. We are a major funder of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, which supports low and middle-income countries in controlling agriculture-associated AMR risks and is working to understand how antimicrobials are used, by whom and how that contributes to the misuse of antimicrobials.