Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to combat the spread of drug-resistant malaria.

DFID has a portfolio of investment and action across all five pillars of the World Health Organisation’s Global Plan for Artemisinin Resistance Containment, through our bilateral, multilateral and research support in Africa and Asia. This includes support to programmes that aim to replace artemisinin monotherapy with artemisinin combination therapy in the private sector in Burma; the Tracking Resistance to Artemisinin Collaboration (TRAC) research programme; financial support to an Asian Development Bank programme in South-East Asia, which aims to strengthen regional political leadership and ownership of the issue; and to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria’s regional Artemisinin Resistance Initiative.

DFID is also working with the World Health Organisation and other donors to develop strategies to investigate the most effective ways to identify resistance and contain the spread.