Dr Lauren Sullivan

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) for securing such an important debate, and I am proud to sit with her on the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for his tireless work in this space. Before I became a Member of Parliament, I was a scientist. I worked on neglected diseases—in particular, human African trypanosomiasis, which is also known as sleeping sickness. I made a diagnostic test field-ready, and it is out there diagnosing people as we speak. More recently, I moved on to work on understanding the immune responses to malaria at the Francis Crick Institute with Dr Jean Langhorne. On a recent visit to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, we saw amazing science and innovation in relation to lymphatic filariasis, and to potentially using a device like this watch to detect it. That is now being looked at for diabetes. That builds on the amazing scientific work we have in this country. A recent report from Impact Global Health in collaboration with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine showed that a global societal return of £1.4 trillion could be generated, and that there could be an extra £7.7 billion for the UK economy. So this is not just about protection and saving lives across the globe; it is about our industry here in the UK. Malaria has been eliminated in nine countries since 2015. That is incredible. We must go further and we can get the job done, so please let us replenish that fund.