Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen O'Brien and Annette Brooke

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of his Department’s performance in the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis in developing countries.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)]

The UK has contributed to significant global progress in reducing deaths and illness from tuberculosis. Globally, 41 million people have been successfully treated since 1995, saving 6 million lives. The UK reaffirmed its commitment to tackling TB, including co-infection TB-HIV, in “UK aid: Changing lives, delivering results” and in the UK’s position paper on HIV in the developing world. A paper on our broader approach to health, including TB, will be published later this year.

[Annette Brooke]

I thank the Minister for his answer and welcome the commitment to addressing TB-HIV co-infection. When will the future health paper be published? When will stakeholders be consulted on it? Will there be specific targets on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB where patients are not co-infected with HIV?

[Mr O'Brien]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. It is very important to recognise that there has been no de-prioritisation of TB, as a huge amount of effort is being made to tackle it. That broader health context and the paper that will appear later this year will set out the priorities and how we will attempt to ensure that we are pushing on the right things to bring down the incidence of TB, which is falling globally. Most importantly, we need to recognise that this depends on the interrelationship with other workings of the health systems.