Tropical Diseases: Drugs

(asked on 16th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the reductions in the aid budget focused on neglected tropical diseases, what estimate he has made of the number of recipient countries that have stockpiles of medicines that are unable to be distributed.


Answered by
Wendy Morton Portrait
Wendy Morton
This question was answered on 21st June 2021

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is currently working with implementing partners, drug companies, donors and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to exit the Accelerating the Sustainable Control and Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ASCEND) programme as responsibly as possible within financial constraints. We are continuing to distribute medicines in the most urgent cases. Given that these activities are ongoing, it is not possible at this stage to estimate if any of the 24 recipient countries will have medicines that will not be distributed. The full results of the programme will be published by early 2022.

Global health remains a top priority for UK ODA and we will continue to be a major contributor in leading international action to strengthen global health security and help build more resilient health systems. Departmental cross-government allocations of ODA spend for 2021/22 were laid out in a Written Ministerial Statement in Parliament on 21 April and the Foreign Secretary highlighted that FCDO will spend £1,305 million on global health, which means that we will remain among the most generous international donors.

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