Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent discussions the Government has had with (a) the World Health Organisation and (b) other stakeholders on the response to the spread of the Zika virus in South America.

The Department for International Development is working with the Department for Heath, who are leading the UK government’s response to Zika, and Public Health England and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This includes supporting the World Health Organisation in galvanising an effective international response.

We are not only concerned exclusively by the spread of Zika in the Americas but are equally concerned by the possible spread to other parts of the world - in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia where countries have less capacity to cope with such a disease.

The UK is supporting and commissioning research to better understand the Zika virus, its epidemiology and impacts, with particular focus on the risk to developing countries, and research into interventions to address this virus. This includes:

• DFID and Wellcome providing funding to commission Zika research on specific topics including understanding the spread of the disease and variation between Zika strains, the effectiveness of new and existing approaches to vector control.
• A general call for research proposals jointly issued by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the Newton Fund for rapid turnaround projects. These studies will include disease surveillance, epidemiology, Zika transmission, research into Zika virus and clinical outcomes.
• The Department of Health’s UK Vaccine Network funding the University of Glasgow to develop a Zika vaccine.

DFID is in the process of allocating more resources to the WHO for disease control preparedness, including Zika and Yellow Fever, including £4 m for Africa, £1.3 m for the Caribbean and £4 m for the rest of the world. DH and DFID officials along with representatives from key agencies – European Commission Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection (ECHO), Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Inst Pasteur, EU Research Brussels, Paul Allen Foundation, as well as Canada, Japan, France and Australia - participated in a WHO/Donor Teleconference on 20 April to further coordinate response to Zika.