Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what discussions she has had with the World Health Organisation on global preparedness in the event of further Ebola outbreaks.

The UK takes the threat of Ebola to global health security very seriously. The Secretary of State has engaged regularly with the Director General of the World Health Organisation about the current outbreak in DRC and how the UK can provide support to the response. The current response is building on previous UK investments on preparedness and health systems; the experimental vaccine used in DRC was developed with UK support after the West Africa outbreak in 2014-15.

More broadly DFID is investing £40million over four years through the Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa Programme (TDDAP) to support preparedness, detection and response work for diseases including Ebola in the countries most at risk. Our ongoing work to support WHO reform is paying dividends in the current response.