Ebola Response Update

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

First, I thank the Minister for giving me advance sight of her statement. I share the Government’s deep concern about the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and I am pleased to hear that £25 million of UK aid has been given to the response. We hope that it goes some way to containing this deadly outbreak.

In addition, supporting neighbouring countries to prepare to tackle the disease is fundamental and welcome. In 2014, we learned the hard way what happens when action is not taken fast enough to halt the cruel and deadly Ebola virus. We all remember with great sadness how too many people tragically lost their lives in west Africa, and none of us will ever forget the fear and chaos that the virus wreaked on the affected communities, and indeed right across the globe. I am sure we all agree that we must act now to avoid a repeat of those horrific scenes, and help the DRC to contain this outbreak.

With the World Health Organisation reporting that 213 people have died since 1 August in the DRC, and the humanitarian agency Médecins sans Frontières confirming 366 cases, let us be sure that DFID steps up and ensures that the UK plays a crucial leadership role alongside the international community in responding to this outbreak, just as we did in Sierra Leone four years ago.

However, while emergency humanitarian response is an integral part of DFID’s work, I am sure the Minister agrees that prevention is better than emergency response. While we send aid to DRC, we cannot and must not turn our backs on providing the long-term support that will ensure countries across the global south have appropriate health systems set up in the first place.

It is deeply disappointing, therefore, that the Minister’s Department dropped health spending from 18% of DFID spend in 2014, to 12% in 2017. Meanwhile, spending on banking and financial services has been on the increase, as the Department appears to lose sight of its core work and instead increases spending on promoting private companies to expand their profits.

Just this year, the aid watchdog, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, told DFID it really needs to improve its work on strengthening health systems. May I ask the Minister, therefore, if she feels that her Department has learned the lessons of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and recognises that supporting countries to build strong, well-managed public services is the only way to ensure that we will not see these outbreaks again in the future?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I will come on to the lessons learnt since the outbreak in Sierra Leone in a moment. However, I am sure that I cannot possibly have heard from the Opposition Front Bench a statement to the effect that having a strong private sector is somehow in conflict with having the revenues needed to provide strong health systems around the world. I hope that that is not the considered position of those on the Labour Front Bench. While spending on strengthening health systems around the world, particularly in some of the poorest and most fragile affected countries, it is important that we in the UK recognise the important role of growth and job creation in the ability of those countries to generate their own tax revenues so that they can continue to strengthen their own health systems. We think that that is the most important way to approach worldwide development.

I digress from the topic at hand. The hon. Lady mentions the outbreak in west Africa. I draw the attention of the House to progress and lessons that have been learned since that outbreak. First, the importance of reacting quickly has been taken into account, both in the first outbreak in the DRC earlier this year, which I am glad to say has been brought under control, and in this outbreak. Importantly, the UK has ensured that the WHO has the resources it needs as soon as it needs them, because this is a clear case of where a quick reaction will save lives.

One major milestone that has occurred since the outbreak in west Africa is that the world has developed an experimental vaccine, which was deployed for the first time this year in the DRC. It proved to be effective in the first outbreak. As I said, 31,000 people have been given the experimental vaccine so far in this outbreak. One real challenge, however, is that this outbreak is in a conflict-affected area. That makes it very difficult to trace contacts and, as I mentioned, 4,400 contacts need to be traced daily. It also makes it very difficult to deliver the vaccine. The vaccine requires trained medical professionals to deliver it. It also requires a secure cold chain. The fact that this is a conflict-affected area is therefore significantly hampering the ability of the international community to do what it needs to do.

The third lesson learned from the outbreak in west Africa is that the WHO strengthened its own processes and has worked with a range of different countries to strengthen their health processes. Ensuring resilience in neighbouring countries is very much a part of the response at the moment—this outbreak is not far from the Ugandan border, just some 20 miles inside the DRC. Strengthening the reaction and response at borders is a lesson that has been learned.