Gavi and the Global Fund

Lauren Sullivan Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Does she agree that it was work on malaria vaccines and others that enabled us to move quickly when covid and other infections occurred, and that investigations into neglected diseases have been the springboard to create vaccines for many other diseases that threaten the entire world?

[Emily Darlington]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is through such programmes that we developed the expertise and the ability to rapidly create mRNA-based vaccines, which led to the creation of our own vaccines here in the UK and allowed us not only to protect our own population but to contribute to protecting biosecurity globally, by ensuring the fast spread of those vaccines.

Similarly, 18 million doses of the RTS,S malaria vaccine created here in the UK have been allocated to 12 African countries. We have administered the vaccine to over 1.7 million children in pilot countries and consequently we have been able to reduce malaria cases. We know that malaria is moving north as climate change hits, so this is not just about protecting children in those countries; it is also about protecting children here at home.

I want to share some of the quotes that were sent to me when scientists at AstraZeneca and elsewhere heard that I had secured this debate. They wanted to send a clear message. Sandy Douglas at the University of Oxford, one of the six scientists who created the covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca, said:

“Gavi brings Britain’s scientific leadership to the world, and this brings investment back into the UK’s world-leading research, generating a virtuous cycle of innovation.”

GSK also reached out because it wanted its voice to be heard in the debate. It said:

“UK life sciences are a critical economic driver to improve health outcomes and transform lives in the UK and around the world, including in the Global South. Scientific innovation underpins national and global health security and economic prosperity at a time of growing uncertainty. GSK and its HIV business…are proud of the contribution we make to deliver these priorities.”

Most importantly, it said:

“The UK’s 2025 investment in Gavi and the Global Fund will be critical in building long-term sustainable access to health technologies at scale.”

This is not just about what we are doing in the global south and in other countries that need our partnership; it is also about what we are doing to build economic growth, which is the single most important mission of this Government.

The reality is that this mission is not over. I could go through many of the numbers, but I know that my hon. Friends will pick up some of them. What I will say is that across the US, the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands, which provide 90% of the HIV funding response, there could be cuts of between 8%—if we do our job well—and 70%. Modelling by the Burnet Institute estimates that such cuts would result in between 4.4 million and 10.8 million additional HIV cases, and between 770,000 and 2.9 million HIV-related deaths in children and adults, by 2030.

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[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) for securing such an important debate, and I am proud to sit with her on the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for his tireless work in this space.

Before I became a Member of Parliament, I was a scientist. I worked on neglected diseases—in particular, human African trypanosomiasis, which is also known as sleeping sickness. I made a diagnostic test field-ready, and it is out there diagnosing people as we speak. More recently, I moved on to work on understanding the immune responses to malaria at the Francis Crick Institute with Dr Jean Langhorne. On a recent visit to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, we saw amazing science and innovation in relation to lymphatic filariasis, and to potentially using a device like this watch to detect it. That is now being looked at for diabetes.

That builds on the amazing scientific work we have in this country. A recent report from Impact Global Health in collaboration with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine showed that a global societal return of £1.4 trillion could be generated, and that there could be an extra £7.7 billion for the UK economy. So this is not just about protection and saving lives across the globe; it is about our industry here in the UK.

Malaria has been eliminated in nine countries since 2015. That is incredible. We must go further and we can get the job done, so please let us replenish that fund.