Margaret Ritchie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Ritchie on 2016-05-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to support the efforts to find a cure for the Zika virus.

Mr Nick Hurd

The UK is supporting and commissioning research to better understand Zika virus, its epidemiology and impacts, with a particular focus on the risk to developing countries, and research into interventions to address this virus. This includes:

• DFID and Wellcome providing funding to commission Zika research on specific topics including understanding the spread of the disease and variation between Zika strains, the effectiveness of new and existing approaches to vector control.
• A general call for research proposals jointly issued by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the Newton Fund for rapid turnaround projects. These studies will include disease surveillance, epidemiology, Zika transmission, research into Zika virus and clinical outcomes.
• The Department of Health’s UK Vaccine Network funding the University of Glasgow to develop explore a Zika vaccine.