Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of (a) prevalence and (b) mortality rates of noma (i) worldwide and (ii) in the UK.

I spoke at a reception in Parliament on the 28th January to mark World Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) day. The meeting included a speech by Noma survivor and advocate Mulikat Okanlawon and I separately met with her to hear about her experiences.

The UK is committed to combating NTDs and towards working with global partners towards achieving the global goal target to end the epidemic of NTDs by 2030, including for Noma. The UK is a signatory to the Kigali Declaration on NTDs and supports the World Health Organization (WHO's) roadmap for Neglected Tropical Diseases 2021-2030.

The UK is a leading provider of flexible funding to WHO, which can support the full range of WHO priorities, such as NTDs. Other wider work that will also support reducing the prevalence and impact of Noma includes the department's support to strengthening country health systems, including in Noma prevalent countries such as Nigeria, and work to address factors associated with Noma such as malnutrition, other infectious diseases, and extreme poverty.

The department has not made any assessment, separate to those made by the WHO, of the prevalence and mortality rates of Noma.