Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to support countries with weak health systems to ensure they have the resilience to respond to the covid-19 pandemic and maintain pre-existing health priorities.

The UK has, so far, pledged £744 million of UK aid to help end the COVID-19 pandemic as quickly as possible. This includes a package of £200 million to support UK charities and international organisations to help prevent infections and mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in developing countries, including maintaining essential health services.

DFID recognises strong and resilient health systems are vital to national and global health security and helping to protect the world from health threats, including COVID-19, and to maintaining the delivery of essential health services.

Through our multilateral partnerships, and our regional and national programmes, we support developing countries to make their health systems stronger and more resilient, and prepared to detect, prevent and respond to health threats, such as COVID-19.