United Kingdom: Future Pandemics Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
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United Kingdom: Future Pandemics
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
Our approach to this has been led by the science. As the House is aware, we set up the UK Health Security Agency precisely to make sure that we have a team of experts in place ready to answer what is needed, in any eventuality. We also set up the 100 Days Mission to make sure that we have the ability to deploy effective diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines within 100 days, which is pretty good.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, could the Minister report to the House what progress is being made in giving the World Health Organization better access to new virus discoveries, and setting up schemes that will enable the better distribution of vaccines at an earlier stage in any further pandemic?
Lord Markham (Con)
We have deployed our sequencing capability to the benefit of the whole world. Some 50% of the variants were discovered on these shores using our capability, and we were the first to announce them to make sure that the whole world could benefit. We have also been leading on vaccine distribution, so we have a good story to tell.