Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what support the Government has provided to the Government of Malawi on (a) testing, (b) surveillance, (c) medical supplies, (d) oxygen plant capacity, (e) vaccines and (f) other steps necessary to help it respond to the covid-19 pandemic.

The UK has provided £7.8 million to support the Government of Malawi's Covid-19 response. The UK's support commenced in March 2020, before Malawi's first reported Covid-19 case. This funding has been instrumental in supporting both preparedness and response. Early UK funding helped to establish initial testing capacity and has continued to supply essential resources to the central laboratory. Through UNICEF we have provided support to district teams for contact tracing, isolation monitoring and better data management. By training more than 5,000 health workers, this improved both testing and surveillance capacity. UK funding also helped increase treatment capacity through supporting the establishment of eight emergency treatment units as well as the procurement of medical and laboratory supplies. We helped establish a new oxygen plant at Malawi's national referral hospital in Lilongwe, with a capacity of 800 litres per minute, and we enabled the provision of 174 portable oxygen concentrators for distribution to more remote areas.

The Malawian Government applied to the COVAX facility (which is co-led by the World Health Organisation, The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and Gavi) in December for vaccines for up to 20% of the population, targeted towards health and social care workers, vulnerable people with comorbidities, and those over 60 years of age.

UK support has also extended beyond the health sector, including the provision of PPE to keep border staff safe and technical support to allow the fast-tracking of essential goods at Malawi's key border posts. Our support to public communications has helped to reach more than 10 million Malawians, increasing their awareness and understanding of Covid-19, and dispelling myths, rumours and stigma.