Skip to main content

Malaria (Quinine Supplies)

Volume 411: debated on Thursday 31 May 1945

The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.

63.

asked the Secretary of State for India the mortality rates for malaria in India during the past 10 years; to what extent this is attributable to the shortage of quinine; and what percentage of the 244,000 lb. of quinine in stock in April was available for civilian consumption.

It is not possible to give reliable figures of deaths in India specifically attributable to malaria, nor to estimate to what extent they might have been reduced by greater use of quinine. The supply of quinine until the Japanese occupation of Java was, broadly, equal to the demand, and supplies of synthetic substitutes have for some time been reaching India in substantial quantities. Of the 244,000 lbs. of quinine in stock in April, 1944, 200,000 lbs. was available for civilian consumption.

:Am I to take it that a certain number of deaths have been attributable to the lack of quinine?