§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how much funding has been made available by his Department for research into the causes of clusters of meningitis; and if he will make a statement on what results have so far been obtained.
Mr. JacksonI have been asked to reply.
The Medical Research Council, which receives its grant-in-aid from this Department, is the main agency through which the Government support medical research. The council is funding a range of research into meningitis, and details are available in the reply that I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) on 21 December 1988 at column 291–92. The Council is not, however, funding research into the causes of clusters of meningitis.
The council is always ready to consider soundly based scientific proposals for funding of new research, in competition with other applications.