Poliomyelitis: WHO Aim (Hansard, 2 December 1996)

§ Lord Chesham
My Lords, I promise that I shall not be answering the fourth Question.

Noble Lords
Oh!

§ Lord Chesham
My Lords, since 1992 the UK Government have committed £56 million towards vaccination and immunisation programmes, including £7.9 million for UNICEF's expanded programme of immunisation which covers polio. In addition to this, we have recently committed £47.5 million in support of the mass vaccination programme in India and £100,000 to Albania in response to the World Health Organisation's appeal to contain the recent outbreak of polio in the Balkans.

Lord Campbell of Croy
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply and I am glad that the British 464 Government have made a generous and far-sighted donation relating to India. As the World Health Organisation has stated that its aim is to immunise every child in the world, does my noble friend foresee any difficulties arising from a refusal to co-operate by individuals or groups who are motivated by religious, ideological or just perverse reasons, even though polio immunisation does not normally require injections but simply a small quantity of liquid sugar to be swallowed?

§ Lord Chesham
My Lords, the lessons to be learned from India are terribly important in that, although only two national immunisation days have taken place there, there has been a drop of 70 per cent. in reported polio cases in India since last year. That is a staggering figure. Neither the UK Government nor the World Health Organisation encourage the development of a legal framework to compel parents to have their children immunised; instead they prefer to stress the risks to young children of not having immunisation carried out and the consequences of the effects of the disease. Parents are given the facts to enable them to decide. The ODA accepts and respects different religious and social systems and recognises the rights and responsibilities of parents.

§ Lord McNally
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that Rotary International and hundreds of Rotary clubs in Britain have made the supply of polio vaccine their major international objective in the millennium campaign to eradicate polio? Does he agree that that is a most welcome initiative from the private sector in helping to eradicate that childhood scourge?

§ Lord Chesham
My Lords, I am happy to agree with the noble Lord. Any efforts, particularly private efforts to back up those made by the Government, are to be applauded. Your Lordships may be interested to know that apart from the obvious benefits in human terms—I refer to avoiding the suffering and death which are the direct effects of the disease—the global eradication of polio is expected to save the world up to £1 billion per year on routine immunisation campaigns. Once polio has been eradicated, no one will need to be vaccinated ever again.

§ The Countess of Mar
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware of the work of Robert Repetto and his colleague on pesticides and the immune system? That work indicates that the immune systems of young people and children in third-world countries (where they are exposed to very high levels of pesticides) are severely compromised. There are now indications that vaccines, such as the measles vaccine and the poliomyelitis vaccine, are not working as well as they should. Can the noble Lord say what the United Kingdom Government are doing to ensure that pesticides are used properly in 465 the third world and that they are sent out from this country with proper labelling in the language of the country to which they are being sent?.

§ Lord Chesham
My Lords, the Question is on polio and I should like to keep to that area.

§ The Countess of Mar
My Lords, I asked a question about polio. successful polio vaccines rely on a healthy immune system. If the immune system is compromised by pesticides, the polio vaccine will not take.

§ Lord Chesham
My Lords, I still feel that that is wide of the Question.

§ Lord Judd
My Lords, we on these Benches add our warmest good wishes to the Government in this vital work against polio. But does not the noble Lord agree that not least in the context of polio, despite all the convincing evidence that well-targeted aid works, the most acute killer and maimer of young people and children in the third world remains poverty, with 33,000 largely preventable distressing child deaths every day and with an under-five mortality rate of 170 per thousand as compared with nine in our part of the world? Does he agree that as we come up to the new millennium the values which we should be celebrating demand that we all renew our determination to eradicate world poverty and to ensure that children who are born are wanted and have the prospect of a reasonable life ahead, and that women all over the world are emancipated from the tyranny of excessive child-bearing?.

§ Lord Chesham
My Lords, as the noble Lord is aware, that is the target and aim of the ODA and its programmes in all parts of the world. However, perhaps I may refer the noble Lord to the Question on the Order Paper.