International Development: Diseases of Poverty

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness gets to the nub of the problem. This is why special effort must go into supporting research in these areas because it is, of course, the poorest who suffer from these diseases and cannot pay the prices for the drugs. I think about 1% of any investment went into this area of neglected tropical diseases, which is of course why Gates took it up. At the moment, he funds 49% of the research being taken forward. That is a template for what we are doing and why we are supporting it.

[Lord Chidgey]

My Lords, with DfID’s support, health organisations have been successful in developing a wide range of new health technologies to address the diseases that we are clearly aware of in developing countries, including TB and malaria. Can my noble friend tell us how successful the outcomes have been, and how confident she is in the results, given that countries such as the DRC and Nigeria together account for some 40% of the deaths from malaria, yet they have the most inadequate data of any country?

[Baroness Northover]

DfID’s research investments have helped to develop a range of treatments plus tests across these areas. For example, there is a diagnostic test for TB which is now available in 29 countries and a child-friendly, life-saving anti-malarial is now available in 39 countries—just to give my noble friend an indication of positive outcomes. We are also working very hard at country level to improve the quality of data to strengthen accountability because he is quite right: if we are to measure this properly, it is very important to have such data coming in.