Viscount Ridley
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Ebola
Viscount Ridley Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Northover
The noble Lord is probably aware that William Pooley, who suffered Ebola and who was treated successfully, has contributed to the treatment of other patients. This is being studied along with pushing forward on vaccine research. There will be a meeting tomorrow of the WHO about that vaccine research. My right honourable friend Oliver Letwin and the Chief Medical Officer will be there.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister ensure that the Government look into the question of why the WHO took eight months to wake up to this epidemic, during which time there appear to have been reassuring noises coming out of local WHO chapters about how this was not a huge problem? Will the Government ensure that serious lessons are learnt about this?
Baroness Northover
I am sure that there are serious lessons to be learnt. We are fortunate to have international organisations but we need to make sure that we strengthen and improve them in the future.