Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether she is taking steps to help ensure that Africa remains free of circulating wild-type poliovirus following the discovery of a case in Malawi in February 2022.

As part of the response to this the recently detected case in Malawi, Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) will vaccinate 22 million children across 4 countries to boost population immunity and prevent the spread of the virus. They are also increasing surveillance capacity in the region to detect any further cases. In addition to our longstanding support at a global level to GPEI, the UK is a strong partner to the Malawi Health Sector, including through our health systems strengthening programme which has a component aimed at building preparedness and response to health shocks such as disease outbreaks.

We are continuing to monitor the situation closely and will work with GPEI, the Malawi Ministry of Health and partners on the ground to ensure a timely and thorough response to this outbreak and we await the findings of the investigation into this case.