Ebola Outbreak: DRC Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for International Development
Nick Smith
Main Page: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)Department Debates - View all Nick Smith's debates with the Department for International Development
(4 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rory Stewart
In terms of the worst-case scenarios we are looking at, Goma is a very serious situation. Butembo, as I explained to the House, has a population of 1 million. Goma is far larger. It is a considerable urban settlement and a major trading port right across to Rwanda. It would not be possible to vaccinate everybody in Goma. There are simply more millions of people than we have vaccines to insert. It is therefore very, very important that we contain the outbreak by ring-vaccination around the area of Butembo. If it moves to Goma, we will have to move to a totally different stage of response, so we must do all we can to prevent that happening.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, which was very helpful. I understand that in Sierra Leone’s most recent Ebola outbreak nearly 10% of that country’s health professionals were killed. This disease can therefore have a huge impact on a country. The Secretary of State talked about much distrust surrounding this outbreak. Will he say more about what is being done to raise awareness and emphasise the impact of Ebola, so we can contain it?