Developing Countries: Health Services

(asked on 24th April 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that critical services to prevent (a) maternal, (b) newborn and (c) child deaths in developing countries are maintained during the covid-19 pandemic.


Answered by
Wendy Morton Portrait
Wendy Morton
This question was answered on 1st May 2020

The UK government’s commitment to end the preventable deaths of mothers, new-born babies and children by 2030 is more essential now than ever given the COVID-19 outbreak. DFID is stepping up efforts to ensure sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn health services continue to be prioritised in our response to the pandemic, to stop mothers and babies dying unnecessarily.

We are funding and working with agencies such as the World Health Organisation, UN Population Fund, the Partnership for Maternal New-born and Child Health and the Global Financing Facility (GFF) to support governments to maintain health systems in affected countries, provide technical guidance and advocate for sustained reproductive, maternal, new-born and child health services. This includes filling essential supply chain gaps and supporting frontline health workers. The UK supported the GFF Investors Group last week in calling for strong, collective action to avoid a potential secondary health crisis from disruptions in health services from COVID-19.

The Global Vaccine Summit in June is also seeking to raise at least US $7.4 billion for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance 2021 – 2025 strategy. The UK has committed £1.65 billion, the equivalent of £330 million per year, to support Gavi’s goal to immunise a further 300 million children and save up to 8 million lives.

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