International Development: Diseases of Poverty

Lord Hughes of Woodside Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I know that the noble Lord is very concerned about value-based pricing in the United Kingdom. We have to take a few steps back in terms of the support that needs to be given for the development of these treatments overseas. This is on a totally different scale. There is, in effect, no market, as the noble Lord’s colleague said, and we need to ensure that there is support for research and development before even the prospect of a market is taken forward.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, great damage is being done to vaccination programmes by religious fanatics who preach that vaccination is in some way an imperialist plot. Is a lot of money being spent on education to disabuse people of that idea?

[Baroness Northover]

Again, the noble Lord highlights an important area. Polio is on the edge of being eradicated but in Pakistan and northern Nigeria, as the noble Lord will know, religious fanatics have killed some of those trying to roll out the programmes there. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working extremely hard to tackle this but, obviously, it is a very delicate problem.