Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Lord Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

In preparation for the Question, I had to ask my officials what “francophone” meant, which reflects the point made by the noble Baroness. These things are indeed being done in other languages so that we can get the messages to people in the most effective way.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, we are running the risk of being complacent. This disease, when we discussed it in the Chamber a few month ago, was confined to rural parts of the DRC, and we were hoping it would remain confined. It has now spread to Goma, a large city on the border with Rwanda and, as has been said, there are already cases in Uganda. I know that the WHO is responsible for surveillance but we are running the risk, as we did with Sierra Leone, that we will wait for the big outbreak to occur. We have in this country two of the greatest experts in the control of Ebola: Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, and Professor Peter Piot. It is time this Government took the lead in trying to control the spread of the disease by using our own experts to advise.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I must apologise to the noble Lord if he feels there is any complacency from the Government, or indeed that my answers have given him any reason to believe that. We are not, and will not be, complacent. We must use all the medical expertise at our disposal to get the message through to people; but we must also get to the grass roots to ensure that people are not frightened to take the message up. The noble Lord’s point is well made.