Ebola: Sierra Leone

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The number of lives directly saved because of work that the UK was able to do is staggering —we can actually see the epidemic curve bending upwards, and then our steadily working with the Government to wrestle it down over a period of months. It was extremely difficult work that required a huge effort.

As part of our response, we had 1,500 military personnel. We provided six UK treatment centres in a matter of weeks. We trained over 4,000 Sierra Leonean healthcare workers. We deployed 150 NHS volunteers, who worked on supporting over 1,500 treatment and isolation beds. That was more than half of the beds available to treat Sierra Leoneans. As I said, we now have a 36-bed mobile field hospital. One hundred Public Health England staff helped to set up three laboratories. We delivered 28,000 tonnes of aid. We delivered more than 1 million protective equipment suits for people working in the red zone and dealing directly with people who had Ebola. We supported over 140 burial teams. We had RFA Argus, the Royal Navy support ship and Merlin helicopters out there. It was a phenomenal response across government and I am very proud to have been part of it.

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. After a crisis has been responded to, it is easy to move on and lose sight of the important and valuable role we played.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I very much support the Secretary of State’s efforts so far and I agree with her comments about the need for economic reconstruction in Sierra Leone. She will have heard the comments of the chief medical officer of Sierra Leone, who is reported as saying that in the case in Magburaka, the patient showed

“no signs or symptoms that fitted the case definition of Ebola”.

Given that very disturbing fact, what are the wider public health implications for us in the United Kingdom, and what discussions has she had about this specific issue with Public Health England, the Department of Health and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office?

[Justine Greening]

We continue to have a substantial team in Sierra Leone working directly on the ground as part of the response to this latest case. That response is, of course, led by the Government of Sierra Leone. The real test of whether we have worked effectively is if, in time, we can step back and see its health system strengthened and able to take care of these sorts of outbreaks. We are investigating this particular case right now. The hon. Gentleman talks about some of the challenges of identification. This is why surveillance is so important. Indeed, it was the following of some procedures on taking swabs of all deaths that picked up that this was Ebola. At each stage of the response, we have had steadily to work out the most effective route forward. We continue to do that as we confront new challenges, such as the one seen in recent days. The House can be assured that we are working hand in hand and have resources in place. We have fantastic medical experts to help us ground any new strategy in terms of the science and of how we take the facts on the ground and respond to them effectively.