Cameron: Big rise in dementia research

FUNDING for research into dementia is to be more than doubled by 2015 in a bid to make Britain a world leader in the field, David Cameron will announce today.

The Prime Minister will say tackling the “national crisis” posed by the disease is one of his personal priorities.

He will say it is a scandal the UK has not done more to tackle dementia, which is thought to affect 670,000 people. The cost to the UK is estimated at £23 billion.

In the next 10 years, the number with the disease is expected to rise to a million.

Launching a “national challenge on dementia”, Mr Cameron will set out plans to step up research into cures and treatments, with overall funding for dementia research to reach £66 million by 2015, up from £26.6m in 2010.

The Prime Minister will say that the costs associated with the disease are already higher than those for cancer, heart disease or stroke.

“We’ve got to treat this like the national crisis it is,” he will add. “We need an all-out fight-back against this disease, one that cuts across society.

“We did it with cancer in the 70s, with HIV in the 80s and 90s, we fought the stigma, stepped up to the challenge and mademassive in-roads into fighting these killers. Now we’ve got to do the same with dementia.”

Acting chief executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK Shirley Cramer said: “David Cameron’s announcements are a turning point in our battle to defeat dementia.”