Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps is he taking to fund (a) disease diagnostics and (b) primary health care services in developing countries.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) supports disease diagnostics through investments in health services, and research and development. We invest in public-private Product Development Partnerships to create diagnostics for diseases like sleeping sickness, malaria, and Tuberculosis. Through our partnership with Institut Pasteur de Dakar we're advancing rapid tests for epidemic diseases such as meningitis, Marburg, and Ebola. Our investment though the Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa programme (TDDAP) strengthens surveillance and lab systems in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and DRC, and our investments in the Global Fund support testing, treatment, and prevention in low and middle-income countries, with 335 million malaria tests conducted in 2023. Our investment in Gavi is enabling the vaccination of 300 million children over 2021-2025 and supports diagnostics distribution, with £1.25 billion committed for 2026-2030 as recently announced.

On primary health care (PHC), the FCDO uses multilateral and bilateral investments, diplomacy and research to strengthen PHC systems. Multilateral support through Gavi, the Global Fund, WHO, UNICEF, UNITAID, and the World Bank complements bilateral partnerships. In Nigeria, for example, we're contributing £16 million with other investors to scale up PHC delivery for mothers, infants, and children, and to strengthen the health workforce.