Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of growing drug resistance upon the globally-agreed target of reducing malaria cases and deaths by 40 per cent by 2020.

Our assessment is that drug resistance, along with insecticide resistance, pose a real threat to the recent progress seen on malaria. This is why DFID is a leading global funder of efforts to tackle malaria, through research funding, bilateral treatment and control programmes and our funding to multilateral institutions such as the Global Fund. This support includes developing new drugs in response to current levels of drug resistance. We also support drug management programmes that decrease the chances of resistance building up, and other measures of tackling malaria, such as the use of bednets.