Procurement of Evusheld Debate
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Andrew Selous
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Procurement of Evusheld
Andrew Selous Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the procurement of Evusheld.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Gary. I am pleased to have secured this important debate on behalf of the forgotten half a million immunocompromised and immunosuppressed patients in England, and the 18,617 people who have signed the parliamentary e-petition calling on the Government to fund the preventive covid-19 drug Evusheld. I pay tribute to the extraordinary campaigning work of Evusheld for the UK, Blood Cancer UK, Kidney Care UK and many other charities that have given their members a voice. There is clearly significant interest from colleagues across the House, and I will endeavour to take as many short interventions as possible.
Let me be blunt: the Government have got this badly wrong. Some of our most vulnerable people are now in an impossible position, or, as some of them have said, they have been left to rot. People with blood cancer, vasculitis, kidney transplants, multiple sclerosis, long- term conditions and rare diseases and those on immunosuppressant drugs are crying out for the preventive drug Evusheld. Why? For them, the covid infection is just as deadly—in fact, more so—than when we first went into lockdown two and a half years ago. They do not mount a response to covid through the vaccines like the rest of us. Covid is not just a bad cold or an inconvenience, but a killer disease. In a society where people are allowed to walk around with that killer disease without being required to wear a mask, test or isolate, nowhere is safe for the immunocompromised—not inside or out.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I share the passion with which the hon. Lady speaks. Does she agree that it is incredibly important that the clinicians and scientists take this decision through the usual rigorous methods, and not us as politicians?
Daisy Cooper
I welcome that intervention and I do agree. I will outline all the scientific evidence that backs the decision to procure Evusheld and roll it out right now, this side of Christmas.