Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that their international response to COVID-19 explicitly supports the health needs of older people in low- and middle-income countries.

We recognise that that older people are disproportionately impacted and at more risk of severe complications and death due to COVID-19.

As well as the primary impacts of COVID-19, marginalised groups also experience secondary impacts of virus. This includes reduced access to healthcare, food and medications, due to increased pressure on healthcare systems, markets and supply chains, made worse by pre-existing accessibility challenges and barriers. We also understand that older people live in a variety of settings where social distancing advice may be challenging to enact, such as humanitarian settings or where older people are living in residential care. We are working hard to ensure that our help reaches those most in need, including older people, through close collaboration with our partners.

Our funding is supporting a range of initiatives and partners to ensure that it can reach those in need and strengthen fragile health services in the world’s poorest countries where there is a high risk of the disease spreading rapidly. This includes supporting the United Nation’s Global Humanitarian Response Plan to tackle COVID-19 and help to the most vulnerable across the globe. The plan explicitly identifies older people given their susceptibility to the virus and their broader vulnerability. Our latest UK aid announcement on 12 April of £200 million, is supporting humanitarian organisations to help reduce mass infections in developing countries that often lack the healthcare systems to track and halt the virus. This includes £130 million to UN agencies in response to their COVID-19 humanitarian appeals.

In addition, we are redirecting existing support and programmes ensure responses to COVID-19 are fully inclusive, including supporting the needs of older people.