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The Department for International Development (DFID), Public Health England (PHE) and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have worked alongside the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Ministry of Health, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the UN mission MONUSCO, the Wellcome Trust, GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance) and others to halt the disease’s spread.
Today, the DRC’s Ministry of Health declared the end of the most recent outbreak of Ebola, while insisting it would remain on the alert and continue to prepare for future outbreaks.
DFID has provided funding to tackle the outbreak, including supplying vaccines, in the DRC.
UK aid also funded the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team, made up of three health experts who flew to the DRC to work as part of an international team fighting Ebola.
International Development Secretary, Penny Mordaunt said:
The UK’s swift and robust response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo helped to stop it spreading to neighbouring countries, and ultimately to the UK. Our response shows how seriously we take such health threats around the world.
UK aid support and expertise were key to containing this deadly outbreak, helping to prevent a repeat of the widespread death toll from the 2014-15 West Africa epidemic. We have learned from this epidemic which resulted in Britons infected with the disease returning to the UK.
Our contributions are helping to limit the spread of Ebola and other deadly diseases, making the world – including the UK – a safer place.
In May, DFID provided £1m (in addition to £2m provided by the Wellcome Trust) to support key science and research elements of the Ebola response. This included support for the roll-out of an experimental Ebola vaccine, which was developed with support from UK aid funding following the 2014-15 West Africa Ebola outbreak. Later in the month DFID provided a package of support to the WHO to aid their response plan. This helped WHO and the DRC Ministry of Health to monitor the spread of the disease, identify and diagnose cases, trace people at risk of infection, support its vaccination campaign, and treat the sick.
In July, DFID provided fresh support to WHO to ensure Ebola did not spread to any of DRC’s neighbouring countries.
The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team, made up of two epidemiologists and a data scientist was sent to DRC in late May. Jointly delivered by Public Health England and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the team worked under difficult conditions in a remote rainforest area. They helped develop an alert system for early warning of possible cases, assisted in the training and supervision of field teams, and tracked the spread of Ebola.
Dr Olivier le Polain, epidemiologist and member of the team, said:
Community surveillance strategies were put in place in remote villages, which were bolstered by teams undertaking active case finding. These teams were travelling to remote areas by motorbike, to ensure that suspect cases were identified, tested, and appropriately managed. Early identification and isolation of cases of Ebola Virus Disease are critical measures that limit onward community spread, and help contain the outbreak.
The focus of UK aid will now move towards preventing future outbreaks. Investing in health systems is important and good value for money, because it enhances the world’s ability to prevent epidemics, rather than reacting to future crises. Evidence suggests that, for every £1 invested in preparation, a £2 return can be achieved in terms of savings on future spending and investments.
Summary of DFID’s funding contribution to tackling Ebola in DRC
Key statistics
Calculating the end of the outbreak
Modussur Khan, 32, from Oldham, was the sole director of Manchester Autospares Limited (MAL) throughout the life of the company. The company was incorporated in December 2011 and sold scrap parts for the motor industry from premises in Failsworth, Manchester.
The company ceased trading on 3 May 2016 and went into liquidation on 18 May 2016, owing creditors £61,374.
An Insolvency Service investigation, which followed the company’s liquidation, found that MAL operated a merchant services account whereby it received card payments from customers.
But the company took unauthorised payments from customers’ cards between 5 April and 25 April 2016 totalling at least £72,887. These payments were not related to genuine purchases and led to increased receipts into the company’s bank account.
And then between 8 April and 22 April 2016, the company made payments totalling at least £71,816 from its bank account using the fraudulently obtained funds, which Modussur Khan used to make personal purchases, a bureau de change withdrawal and other cash withdrawals.
Furthermore, MAL’s customers applied for refunds to the merchant services provider as they had not authorised payments to MAL. This led the merchant services provider to suffer a total loss of £56,791.
On 31 May 2018, the Secretary of State accepted a disqualification undertaking from Modussur Khan, in which he did not dispute making payments of £71,816 from the company’s bank account when he knew or ought to have known that at least some of these funds were obtained fraudulently.
His disqualification became effective from 21 June 2018 and lasts for 12 years, where he is banned from directly or indirectly becoming involved in the management of a company without the permission of the court.
Robert Clarke, Group Leader of Insolvent Investigations North at The Insolvency Service said:
This is a serious case of misconduct by the director. The disqualification of Modussur Khan sends out a clear message that where a corporate vehicle is used to facilitate actual or potential fraudulent activity, action will be taken to remove the directors from the corporate arena for a lengthy period of time.
Modussur Khan resides in Oldham and his date of birth is March 1986;
Manchester Autospares Limited (Company Reg no. 07892144) was incorporated in December 2011. The company went into liquidation on 18 May 2016, with a deficiency as regards creditors of £61,374.
A disqualification order has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:
Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings.
Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions.
The Insolvency Service administers the insolvency regime, investigating all compulsory liquidations and individual insolvencies (bankruptcies) through the Official Receiver to establish why they became insolvent. It may also use powers under the Companies Act 1985 to conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into the activities of live limited companies in the UK. In addition, the agency deals with disqualification of directors in corporate failures, assesses and pays statutory entitlement to redundancy payments when an employer cannot or will not pay employees, provides banking and investment services for bankruptcy and liquidation estate funds and advises ministers and other government departments on insolvency law and practice.
Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available.
Media enquiries for this press release – 020 7674 6910 or 020 7596 6187
You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:
Thank you.
On behalf of the UK Government and our co-hosts, the Government of Kenya and International Disability Alliance, I want to say a huge thank you to each and every one for your enthusiastic and committed participation today.
And on a personal note I want to thank all of the moderators we have had today and also my fantastic team at DFID, led by Gerard Howe and his amazing team and my fantastic Ministerial team – Alistair Burt, Harriett Baldwin and Lord Bates who has done a lot of the work for this conference.
We have witnessed some incredible and inspirational moments today.
We have heard President Moreno’s uplifting call to action. We were inspired by Maisie’s moving journey in the silent child and, most importantly, we were challenged by the many activists and disabled people’s organisations from across the world who have attended this summit.
We have listened to new people and new organisations and new ideas.
We have seen a broadening of the circle across civil society, governments and individuals. And we have worked together to embrace and deliver on our common goal to leave no one behind, bringing disability front and centre of International Development.
When people with disabilities are included, great things happen.
And we have heard today about some of the exciting and ambitious projects and partnerships on disability inclusion that are under way.
Great Partnerships like the one with our co-hosts, the Government of Kenya and the International Disability Alliance – they are crucial if we want to transform the lives of people with disabilities
That’s why we have announced the new UK-Kenya Strategic Partnership between the our governments and Kenyan businesses, to economically empower people with disabilities in Kenya.
It will establish a dynamic partnership model which demonstrates private sector leadership as a driving force behind inclusive economic growth.
Over the longer term I hope that this partnership model will be replicated and used to stimulate inclusive economic growth more broadly.
I am also delighted that the UK will be co-chairing a partnership for donors and partners – the Global Action for Disability Network – with the International Disability Alliance and the Government of Australia.
We have also seen the launch of new global partnerships for disability inclusion – such as AT Scale – a global partnership for assistive technology with an ambitious aim to reach half a billion more people globally with essential assistive technology by 2030.
And the launch of the Inclusive Education Initiative – a new UK-led multi-donor partnership to support developing countries realise the promise of truly inclusive schools, teaching and learning. It will support countries to collect data, integrate disability into education plans, and build capacity to rollout reforms and train teachers.
We know that such data collection is invaluable when it comes to disability inclusion.
Recognising the critical importance of data, today we have launched a new Global Data Portal with Leonard Cheshire that brings together existing disability data for the first time on 16 key development indicators from 40 low and middle-income countries around the world.
This will help us identify gaps between men and women with disabilities and those without disabilities and support stronger planning, resource allocation and accountability.
DFID has also signed up to the Inclusive Data Charter to support the quality, quantity, financing and availability of inclusive and disaggregated data. This will help us deliver on our promise to ‘Leave No One Behind’.
Focusing on the Private Sector, the CDC – the UK’s own development finance institution – will change the way they work, so that disability inclusion is at the heart to the companies they fund.
Throughout our sessions today, I am delighted that we have consistently recognised the importance of both gender equality and youth participation for disability inclusion.
As Minister for Women and Equalities as well, I am particularly conscious of the double discrimination faced by women and girls with disabilities – marginalised for their gender as well as disability. That’s why DFID is committed to amplifying the voices of women and girls with disabilities.
Through the Girls Education Challenge Programme (GEC), UK Aid has supported over 46,000 girls with disabilities to access education. Through the programme’s new Leave No One Behind strand we will back another 15 projects and support 10,000 girls with disabilities.
We are also providing additional funding to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls with disabilities.
With regards to youth, DFID has extended the International Citizen Service (ICS) youth volunteering programme until December 2019 and doubled the number of applications we want to achieve from people with disabilities.
I am also pleased today to set out DFID’s position on children and young people in institutions.
The UK government recognises that institutionalisation harms children’s physical, emotional and psychological development, and that children with disabilities are often the first to be placed in institutional care, the last to leave institutional care, and often end up being forgotten by society.
The UK government will continue to work towards the long term process of de-institutionalisation. The UK is supportive of inclusive community services for all children and the promotion of family and community-based care.
We see the long-term solution to this issue to be tackling systemic problems at a national level so that the systems, services and policies are in place to create a protective environment for children.
Actively involving people with disabilities in decision-making doesn’t just empower individuals – it leads to better decisions and more effective outcomes.
Today we have all come together and demonstrated our leadership on disability by making new, ambitious and far-reaching commitments critical to achieving real change for persons with disabilities.
Here are the numbers:
The list could and does go on.
Our success here today will be measured in the weeks, months and years that follow. We want to keep up the incredible momentum and energy that you have generated in this room today. That is why we have already started work to track and build upon all of commitments we have made.
The first phase will start work tomorrow and we will ensure all commitments made at the summit are visible and accessible online.
Over the next year, progress against the commitments will be monitored and a progress report will be published in 2019 to show how far we have come. The report will help us share good practice and support each other going forward.
We will prioritise investing and supporting civil society, disabled persons organisations, and their networks in a number of focus countries.
These accountability measures arrangements will help us stay on track over the first year, but it won’t stop there.
We must keep tracking and reporting on our progress against commitments made at this summit and beyond.
We must continue to raise the profile of and champion disability inclusion in global development initiatives.
We must accelerate disability inclusive development by mobilising additional new commitments and new actors beyond the summit.
And we must continue to progressively set more ambitious goals and share good practice and evidence.
We have already started talking to a number of organisations here today and we would like to hear from you all.
Over the next 12 months we can develop this partnership approach together and launch next year alongside the first progress report.
I encourage you to reach out to colleagues at DFID and at IDA if you are interested in shaping this long-term strategy and achieving lasting change for people with disabilities.
We should all be proud of what we have achieved today. We have raised the global ambition and attention and focus on an area that has been neglected for far too long.
We have mobilised an amazing array of new global and national commitments towards achieving the Global Goals and UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
But above all, we have delivered a summit led by people with disabilities for people with disabilities. And as we go forward we must ensure people with disabilities continue to lead.
This is not just the right thing to do for common humanity – but it is the smart thing to do in ending extreme poverty. If we get things right for people with disabilities, we get things right for all people.
The summit is just the start. We all have a shared responsibility to ensure that the momentum continues.
By working in partnership, we can achieve lasting change for people with disabilities in the world’s poorest countries, and build a healthier, fairer and more prosperous future for all.
Now is the time. Let’s get to work.
Thank you.
Northumbrian Water Ltd (NWL) has been ordered to pay over £33,600 in fines and costs for three separate pollution incidents, including pollution of a Tyne Valley burn with untreated sewage effluent, which bypassed the local sewage treatment works.
The company was sentenced on Monday 23 July at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court after admitting one charge of causing a discharge of untreated sewage into Smithy Burn at Broomley on 19 August 2016.
Two other similar offences were taken into consideration as part of this case following unpermitted discharges of sewage effluent on 26 June 2015 at both Summerhouse & Killerby Sewage Treatment Works (STW), both near Darlington.
The pollution at Broomley originated from a storm overflow channel. These allow rainwater and sewage effluent to bypass a sewage treatment works in times of heavy rainfall, to avoid the works’ capacity being exceeded. To be lawful, storm overflows should be incorporated into the works’ environmental permit.
According to the Environment Agency, this was not the case at Broomley, since Northumbrian Water’s environmental permit clearly states that discharges to Smithy Burn should consist only of treated sewage effluent.
Chris Bunting, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, told the court that investigations found a build-up of silt had prevented flow from reaching the works, and instead diverted it to the storm overflow. Northumbrian Water’s maintenance inspections hadn’t included a requirement to check a manhole chamber where the blockage would likely have been discovered.
Formal samples were taken from the burn and an ecological survey revealed a thick sewage fungus affecting the watercourse for 100m downstream of the outfall, which had starved the water of oxygen and resulted in the death of freshwater shrimp and midge larvae.
At Summerhouse & Killerby STW’s, the Environment Agency’s inspections found both to be in a poor state of repair with faulty equipment. Rather than discharging treated sewage effluent, at Killerby sampling showed effluent leaving the works was more polluted than where it arrived.
Malcolm Galloway, appearing for NWL told the court that staff were to blame for the faults as they hadn’t followed the company’s inspection procedures, and that NWL has a good compliance record. He also maintained that the storm overflow at Broomley had been permitted because it was included in the permit application made back in 1989.
In sentencing, District Judge Roger Elsey ruled that the company’s culpability was low, but that the additional offences meant the fine had to be increased.
Environment Agency Area Environment Manager, Fiona Morris said:
The incident at Broomley had a significant impact on the ecology of Smithy Burn. This case demonstrates how important it is that water companies and wider regulated industries understand and comply with the conditions by which they are permitted to operate.