Lanzamiento de la campaña Choosing Wisely Argentina: primeros pasos hacia la desimplementación de prácticas de bajo valor / Launch of the Choosing Wisely Argentina campaign: first steps towards the de-implementation of low-value practices

En esta editorial, la autora aborda la problemática de las prácticas de bajo valor en la medicina contemporánea: aquellas intervenciones terapéuticas o diagnósticas carentes de respaldo científico, que aumentan la probabilidad de daños, generan desperdicio de recursos y amenazan la eficiencia del sistema de salud. En un contexto de preocupación global por el exceso médico y las consecuencias del sobreuso de intervenciones inefectivas, resalta la relevancia del concepto de prevención cuaternaria en la atención sanitaria, y señala la iniciativa internacional Choosing Wisely como una estrategia para identificar y revertir las prácticas de bajo valor, destacando la importancia del cambio cultural y la participación activade los pacientes. Finalmente, la autora presenta el lanzamiento de Choosing Wisely Argentina, una colaboración entre asociaciones científicas locales con el compromiso de transformar la práctica médica en este país, priorizando el bienestar del paciente y adoptando un enfoque integral hacia la atención sanitaria. (AU)

In this editorial, the author addresses the problem of low-value practices in contemporary medicine: those therapeutic or diagnostic interventions that lack scientific support and increase the probability of damage, generate waste of resources,and threaten the efficiency of the health system. In a context of global concern about medical excess and the consequences of the overuse of ineffective interventions, she highlights the relevance of the concept of quaternary prevention in healthcare, and points to the international Choosing Wisely initiative as a strategy to identify and reverse low-value practices, highlighting the importance of cultural change and active patient participation. Finally, the author presents the launch of Choosing Wisely Argentina, a collaboration amongst local scientific associations with the commitment to transform medical practice in this country, prioritizing patient well-being and adopting a comprehensive approach to health care. (AU)

Economia política da saúde e o financiamento dos sistemas universais de saúde contemporâneos à luz do pensamento de Paul Singer / Political economy of health and the financing of contemporary universal health systems in the light of Paul Singer's thought

Introdução: Os sistemas universais de saúde são suscetíveis às crises estruturais do capitalismo e às suas turbulências e têm tido de se adaptar às mudanças sociais bruscas, sobretudo no cenário mundial neoliberal. Há um quadro geral de embates que os sistemas vêm experimentando, com mercantilização, cortes drásticos de recursos e modificações nos esquemas de financiamento. Os recursos e o ambiente político e social são disputados no movimento do capital contemporâneo, sob a predominância do capital portador de juros, na sua forma mais perversa, o capital fictício. A discussão da sustentabilidade dos sistemas vem exigindo que o instrumental da economia passe a ser cada vez mais considerado para entender as novas características e os limites dos esquemas de financiamento, o que exige a utilização do referencial teórico da economia política e uma crítica à narrativa predominante da economia neoclássica. Objetivo: Caracterizar a produção sobre o tema do financiamento de sistemas universais de saúde, com a finalidade de identificar como a sua sustentabilidade é abordada e a relação com a economia política, em particular, à luz da contribuição de Paul Singer na obra "Prevenir e Curar: o Controle Social Através dos Serviços de Saúde", de 1978. Método: Revisão sistematizada da literatura sobre o financiamento da saúde em sistemas universais na fase contemporânea do capitalismo, caracterização das discussões e cotejamento com cinco dimensões extraídas da obra estudada de Paul Singer. Resultados: Apenas 33,6% dos artigos identificados como pertinentes ao financiamento promovem discussões voltadas à economia política; destes, 76,6% alinhados ao pensamento keynesiano e 23,4% à visão marxista. Há convergência em relação às dimensões da perspectiva histórica (91,5%), dos sistemas de saúde sob a égide do Estado capitalista (100%), do controle social pelo Estado (23,4%), do estado de saúde (57,4%) e dos critérios de avaliação (72,3%). Conclusão: Os estudos identificados e o pensamento de Singer convergem ao identificar a limitação da Economics frente à inserção da questão da saúde no âmbito dos interesses que compõem a sociedade capitalista, ao passo que divergências na questão de critérios de avaliação não revelam uma relação de oposição, mas uma descrição do movimento do capital no período, com a ascensão do capital financeiro e o novo papel do Estado. Uma maior apropriação do referencial da economia política da saúde pode estar relacionada aos momentos de agravamento da crise do capital e das medidas de austeridade.

Introduction: Universal health systems are susceptible to the structural crises of capitalism and its turmoil and have had to adapt to sudden social changes, especially in the neoliberal world scenario. There is a general framework of clashes that the systems have been experiencing, with commodification, drastic cuts in resources and changes in financing schemes. Resources and the political and social environment are disputed in the movement of contemporary capital, under the predominance of interest-bearing capital, in its most perverse form, fictitious capital. The discussion of the sustainability of systems has been demanding that economic instruments be increasingly considered to understand the new characteristics and limits of financing schemes, which requires the use of the theoretical framework of political economy and a critique of the prevailing narrative of neoclassical economics. Objective: To characterize the production on the theme of financing universal health systems, with the purpose of identifying how its sustainability is approached and the relationship with the political economy, in particular, in the light of Paul Singers contribution in the work "Preventing and Healing: Social Control Through Health Services", 1978. Method: Systematized review of the literature on health financing in universal systems in the contemporary phase of capitalism, characterization of the discussions, and comparison with five dimensions extracted from Paul Singers studied work. Results: Only 33.6% of the articles identified as relevant to financing promote discussions focused on political economy; of these, 76.6% aligned with Keynesian thinking and 23.4% with a Marxist view. There is convergence in relation to the dimensions of the historical perspective (91.5%), health systems under the aegis of the capitalist State (100%), social control by the State (23.4%), health status (57, 4%) and evaluation criteria (72.3%). Conclusion: The identified studies and Singers thinking converge in identifying the limitation of Economics in the face of the insertion of the health issue in the scope of interests that make up capitalist society, while divergences in the issue of evaluation criteria do not reveal a relationship of opposition but a description of the movement of capital in the period, with the rise of financial capital and the new role of the State. A greater appropriation of the political economy of health framework may be related to moments of worsening of the crisis of capital and austerity measures.

Media briefing on COVID-19 - 06/04/2021​

00:00:17 CL Hello, good day and welcome, wherever you are listening today. It is Tuesday 6th April 2021. My name is Christian Lindmeier and I'm welcoming you to today's global COVID-19 press conference ahead of World Health Day, which we celebrate on 7th April. Therefore we have a list of very special guests online with us today. We'll start with Her Excellency Prime Minister Mia Mottley from Barbados, His Excellency President Carlos Alvarado Quesada from Costa Rica, His Excellency President Hage Geingob from Namibia and His Excellency President Ilham Aliyev from Azerbaijan, who will join us through a video statement. Simultaneous interpretation is provided again in the six official UN languages, Arabic, Chinese, French, English, Spanish and Russian, plus we will have Portuguese and Hindi. Now let me introduce the participants in the room here. We have Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, Dr Mike Ryan, Executive Director for WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead on COVID-19, Dr Mariangela Simao, Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products, Dr Bruce Aylward, Special Advisor to the Director-General and Lead on the ACT Accelerator and last but not least Dr Rogerio Gaspar, Director for regulation and Pre-Qualification. Welcome all. Let me now hand over to the Director-General for his opening remarks. 00:02:08 TAG Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. Tomorrow is World Health Day. COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities both between and within countries. While we have all undoubtedly been impacted by the pandemic the poorest and most marginalised have been hit hardest both in terms of lives and livelihoods lost. In the year ahead the world needs to make five vital changes. First we need to invest in equitable production and access to COVID-19 rapid tests, oxygen treatments and vaccines between and within countries. At the start of the year I made a call for every country to start vaccinating health workers and older people in the first 100 days of 2021. This week will mark the 100th day and 190 countries and economies have now started vaccination. COVAX itself has already delivered 36 million doses to 86 countries and economies. Supply chains are up and running and health systems primed. 00:03:38 Scaling up production and equitable distribution remains the major barrier to ending the acute stage of this pandemic. It is a travesty that in some countries health workers and those at risk groups remain completely unvaccinated. The effort to achieve vaccine equity will not stop this week. WHO will continue to call on governments to share vaccine doses and fill the US$22.1 billion gap in the ACT Accelerator for the equitable distribution of vaccines, rapid tests and therapeutics. We will also look to find new ways to work with manufacturers to boost overall vaccine production. This month individuals around the world will also be able to get involved in accelerating vaccine equity via a new fund-raising campaign. Developed by the WHO Foundation and a range of partners, the campaign will enable individuals an companies to get one, give one and close the overall COVID-19 vaccine gap. Further updates will be shared around the launch. Second, there must be a serious investment in primary healthcare and getting health services to every member of every community. The pandemic has exposed the fragility of our health systems. As essential services were paused many diseases came roaring back. At least half of the world's population still lacks access to essential health services and out-of-pocket expenses on health drive almost 100 million people into poverty each year. 00:05:36 As countries move forward post COVID-19 it will be vital to avoid cuts in public spending on health and other social sectors. Such cuts are likely to increase hardship among already disadvantaged groups. They will weaken health system performance, increase health risks, add to fiscal pressure in the future and undermine development gains. Instead governments should meet WHO's recommended target of spending an additional 1% of GDP on primary healthcare which is central to improving both equity and efficiency. And they must reduce the global shortfall of 18 million health workers needed to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. Third, prioritise health and social protection. Some countries have already put in place expanded social protection schemes to mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic on poverty, education, nutrition and overall health. These schemes should be extended until essential services are up and running again and they must include marginalised groups in planning and implementing future schemes. 00:07:05 Fourth, build safe, healthy and inclusive neighbourhoods. City leaders have often been powerful champions for better health, for example by improving transport systems and water and sanitation facilities. Access to healthy housing in safe neighbourhoods is key to achieving health for all but too often the lack of basic social services for some communities traps them in a spiral of sickness and insecurity. That must change. Meanwhile 80% of the world's populations living in extreme poverty are in rural areas where seven out of ten people lack access to basic sanitation and water services. So countries must intensify efforts to reach rural communities with health and other basic social services. Finally data and health information systems must be enhanced. High-quality and timely disaggregated data by sex, wealth, education, ethnicity, race, gender and place of residence is key to working out where inequities exist and addressing them. Health inequity monitoring has to be an integral part of all national health information systems. At present just half the world's countries have any capacity to do this. 00:08:50 Today I'm happy to welcome four heads of state and government to talk about health equity and changes they have made to achieve it. First Her Excellency Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados will start proceedings and I'm keen to hear of Barbados' experience in the last year and the way ahead. Prime Minister, you have the floor. MM Thank you very much, my brother, Dr Tedros, Your Excellency, Hage Geingob, President of Namibia, who I have not seen since Nairobi in December 2019 - we didn't expect the last year - and to my other brother, Your Excellency, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, we spoke a couple of months ago and equally we didn't expect that this journey would be as long as it is. Also President Aliyev, I want to say how pleasant it is this morning for me to join you because 73 years ago tomorrow the World Health Organization was formed and therefore the commemoration of this day through World Health Day is most appropriate. 00:10:20 It would have been appropriate in any scenario but more relevant and more critical at this point. In the Caribbean we love our proverbs; short, clever phrases packed with the knowledge to last a lifetime and I suspect those in Africa are the people from whom we've got that love of proverbs. One favourite amongst us and especially our schoolteachers in the region was the one that simple said, Peter pays for Paul and Paul pays for all. I start here this morning because it is in the recognition that this is a collective battle that we will win the victory. We have come together globally to try and fight a pandemic but we have to ask ourselves whether we did it in sufficient time and on sufficient scale. We have to ask ourselves whether the five priority actions being focused on this morning - equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments both within and between countries is being achieved by the countries of the region and the countries of the world. In the Caribbean our journey has been tortuous over the past year and, Dr Tedros, I know that you have tried to intervene on numerous occasions to assist us but the bald reality is that our market size in many instances is simply too small to command the attention of global pharmaceutical companies or indeed of other suppliers of goods in the normal supply chain that will lead the therapeutics distribution, vaccine distribution. 00:11:58 The bottom line is that we have also separately been regarded by the global community as countries that have come out of the depths of poverty and therefore are not deserving of assistance in the traditional ways normally reserved for the most vulnerable. This has made life difficult. We've held on to the promise of COVAX and I've come to you this morning having received the first trance of Barbados' vaccines, 3% of our population with respect to the COVID vaccines this morning. But for many globally this has been a difficult exercise because, as we have seen, the spikes can literally grow. We've not had access even when we are prepared to pay. It is against this background therefore that the first call to action of equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments within and between countries is one with which we can relate. 00:12:57 Secondly the post COVID-19 recovery budget and plans to protect and prioritise health and social sectors is one that is truly being felt by the majority of us and why? The World Bank estimates that global GDP will fall by about 4% this year with between 40 and 60 million people entering extreme poverty. But our reality also is as a tourism and travel-dependent country the fall in our GDP last year was not 4%, was not 8%, was not even 12 or 16%; it was 18%, threatening to take our country back more than a decade as a result of the loss of production and productive capacity. Regrettably we continue to be treated globally as one of those countries that is not deserving of concessional capital even as we face the most difficult crisis that we have faced in a century. These are issues that I hope that the development committee of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that meets later this week and I have the honour of chairing will begin to start to put our case for the need to use different criteria for determining how countries should access serious concessional capital most needed now in order to stave off the worst aspects of this pandemic but more importantly to deal with the long-lasting consequences of the pandemic, which are the social and economic losses that have been sustained in the last decade. 00:14:29 The third aspect of the call to action; equitable services and infrastructure in all communities both urban and rural; this is absolutely critical particularly for the larger countries in the region and globally but even within a small country such as ours we recognise that there are differences and that part of the problem particularly in the urban setting is the density of housing that has existed in many instances pre-independence and post-independence largely because most developing countries in the world have had a significantly broad agenda reflected by many in the SDG agenda but a significant broad agenda that makes it difficult for us to have corrected all of the wrongs that we've needed to correct since independence. It means that in urban communities the density and the exposure is far greater regrettably than in most but equally in rural communities the lack of access to available healthcare for larger countries, not so much small island developing states but larger countries remains a major issue. 00:15:39 Fourthly, the call to action looks at the issue of primary healthcare for everyone everywhere but I like to make the point that the Caribbean more than most has in the post-independence era determined that for us to leave anyone behind is a travesty because our modern settlement was based on discrimination and exclusion and therefore the reality and the imperative of inclusion as well as transparency are absolutely vital if we are to bring our people out of these difficult times in which we live. Finally better data collection and reporting in countries so that we know where the health equalities [sic] are and can address them. My friends, this will not be the last pandemic, it will not be the last one for us. History is replete with examples and we have to determine what we will learn from our experience over the course of the last year. For many the 1918-1920 Spanish flu pandemic is too far in the recesses of our recent memory, such that we made fundamental mistakes that we should never allow anyone to make again. Dr Tedros, you asked me to serve as the Co-Chair on the One Health Global Initiative, which we have dubbed the slow-motion pandemic because we fear that by 2050 more people will die from these super-viruses that the antibiotics and other medication that we have are not allowing us to treat sufficiently. 00:17:13 I pray that we will take in front, as we would say, before in front takes us. What do I mean by that? That we will so sensitise the global population that the basic things that we need to take action, the basic policy instruments necessary to remove people from poverty or necessary to remove the juxtaposition of animals and humans in living conditions, not just working conditions, that have given rise to so many diseases that have caused so much death and so much concern in the world. If we do not get the fundamental development equation correct, if we do not work together, if we do not appreciate that we can only work together if we are to achieve a fairer and healthier world then we run the risk of seeing millions of persons die again in circumstances where different policy responses or similar policy responses with different scale and different pace of execution can hopefully have a different result in ensuring that fewer and fewer people will become victims to awful epidemics and pandemics. 00:18:25 They say politics is the art of repetition and I said so this morning. Over he course of the last year we have said the same thing more often than at any other time. There is no magic bullet and there is no magic recipe. The answer is simply for us to work together to get that fairer world and for there to be a level of global moral leadership, recognising that the singular pursuit of individual countries will not rid the world of the major problems because human beings cannot be contained behind boundaries easily in this globally interdependent world. I pray that we will across the world summon the courage to be able to have co-ordinated action, not just acting together but co-ordinated action such that we are in a position to be able to see the end of this pandemic because we are acting collectively with shut-downs, we're acting collectively with protocols, we're acting collectively with the kinds of policy responses that we now know after a year are critical if we are to put this behind us. I thank the World Health Organization and all of its staff members, the Pan-American Health Organization that serves us in this hemisphere and all of its staff members for continuing to keep the battle on but I recognise that the ball lies in the courts of the political will of member states of the global community. Thank you and may we rise to that point where we summon the courage for that globally co-ordinated action to make a fairer, healthier world. Thank you. 00:20:13 TAG Thank you. Thank you so much, Your Excellency Prime Minister Mottley. Moral leadership and co-ordinated action; I fully agree. Barbados' experience suppressing COVID-19 as well as investing in universal health coverage is an example for the region and the world so thank you so much again. I will now turn to His Excellency, President Carlos Alvarado of Costa Rica, who has been working closely with WHO on how to ensure that new health technologies are available in all countries through his idea, the CTAP, which we have started implementing together. President Alvarado, very nice to see you again even if it's online. The floor is yours. CA Thank you very much, Dr Tedros. TR Thank you very much, Dr Tedros. My greetings to Your Excellency Prime Minister Mia Mottley from Barbados, President Hage Geingob from Namibia and those who are joining us today at the press conference. Indeed, Dr Tedros, the principles of CTAP, which is the technology for healthcare pool; it's continuing this year, one year after the start of this pandemic and one day before World Health Day. 00:21:48 This is linked to access to technologies or treatments in an equal and fair way for people throughout the world without any distinction. As Prime Minister Mottley was saying, this has a great deal to do with moral leadership and with commitment to progress along this way. This pool can bring along technologies to make them available to all countries and to all governments throughout the world. As Dr Tedros has said, we need to keep pushing for this. There's already a team set up within the WHO for this so what we need is governments and the private sector to commit to making it a reality. The first point that was raised by the call of Dr Tedros on equitable access; I'd like to mention two central subjects. One is linked to the strengthening of social security and universal healthcare in countries. In Costa Rica it has been the strength of our universal healthcare system that has protected us and this has ensured that we reduced the differences between those on higher and lower incomes because we've ensured that anyone in any part of the country has the same access to testing, vaccine, treatment and even to hospitalisation with no distinction on geography. 00:23:26 This is difficult and is expensive but this is what makes a difference in a world that needs greater equality and the pandemic, as Dr Tedros has said, has increased inequalities between countries and within countries. The inequalities also have an impact on health. Societies which are more unequal are societies which are most violent and the most violent societies also bring about other phenomena such as migration or clearly the loss of human life. Another very important point in terms of equitable access is the drive that many countries are making for the international treaty for preparation and response to pandemics. Before COVID-19 the globalised world had not experienced such an impact in the effects of a pandemic and we need to learn from this experience and be ready. Above all being ready means being ready for co-ordinated action and action in solidarity which does not distinguish between greater or less development, greater or less wealth, whether one is in an urban or rural area. 00:24:50 We hope that this treaty will achieve these principles but we will also work towards ensuring that the treaty includes principles such as those that we have used in CTAP. On the budgets for post-COVID recovery it has remained clear that health is not just a matter of illness. Healthcare is an all-encompassing subject. We cannot take care of our populations if we don't have guarantees for budgets that provide support to the health sector, community sector and to the infrastructure. It's so important that multilateral organisations can provide means of financing for poor countries, for emerging countries and to assist them in facing up to the medium and long-term effects of the pandemic. Today developed economies have managed to achieve special packages to help their countries to overcome the effects of COVID but that's not something that poorer countries can do. The fact that there will not be a global recovery from COVID whilst the whole planet is not vaccinated; we won't see economic recovery in the planet if the whole world is not economically vaccinated. 00:26:24 So it's extremely important that we look for the subject of financing, whether it's in debt forgiveness or financing in the long term with zero rates or stable rates of interest so that countries can have a margin for manoeuvre. We also need to finance the development and public health infrastructure and recovery so this is more than a subject of finance; it's one of health as well. That's why it's so important that we deal with this. Costa Rica has launched the FACE initiative fund [?] to alleviate... from economics within the United Nations and also with ECLAT [?] to cover those funds to help emerging economies. To give a specific case, the opinions of the qualifying agencies are not taking into account the efforts being made by governments to maintain stable economies and also to assist our populations and every time that there's a negative qualification that makes access to finance more expensive for our countries. 00:27:51 We need to take into account the impact of COVID when countries are assessed because we have to think about the effect of the pandemic on countries' economies. In terms of data collection and the assessment of data mentioned by the Director-General, Costa Rica has a system which is the digital document where each citizen has their digital record and that helps us to keep track of progress whilst maintaining the confidential nature for each citizen. But it helps us to have the management of this data so we can deal with this pandemic and future pandemics. I'd like to turn now to showing my gratitude to the WHO for all its work and I'd like to thank Dr Tedros and mention once more our support from Costa Rica and my support to ensure that treatments, diagnoses and vaccines arrive in an equitable and rapid manner to all those who need them. Once more my greetings, Dr Tedros. TAG Muchas gracias, Your Excellency President Alvarado. I wholeheartedly agree. Equitable sharing of rapid tests, therapeutics, oxygen and vaccines are key to ending the acute phase of the pandemic. That means tech transfer, sharing know-how and waiving intellectual property rights. Thank you so much for your leadership on this, especially on CTAP. 00:29:43 I look forward to now hearing from His Excellency President Hage Geingob of Namibia on their all-of-society efforts to tackle COVID-19 and lessons going forward on health equity. Your Excellency, you have the floor. HG Thank you very much. Your Excellencies, greetings. I saw you last in [inaudible] so as usual, glad to listen to you, [inaudible]. Your Excellencies, it's a great pleasure for me and this important [inaudible] World Health Day. Given the devastating pandemic of the world [inaudible] it is timely [inaudible] regarding this [inaudible] and indeed the ways and means [inaudible] a fairer, healthier world post COVID-19. The fact that the Director-General of WHO has invited us to be part of this year's event speaks to the urgency of fostering the recovery for the entire world from the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Building a fairer and healthier world will demand joint and concerted action. It will require that we as members of the human family stand resolutely together to do everything that is required to return our societies to normalcy. 00:31:42 Our people young and old have been traumatised. Lives and livelihoods have been disrupted, leaving a country that has been deeply scarred. [Unclear] and racial oppression [inaudible] and healthier societies is an objective that [inaudible]. [Inaudible] Have been aimed at building an equitable [inaudible] in which no-one must feel left out. We here in Namibia applied equally [inaudible]. We got help from our good friends in China and India, who gave us vaccines so far. We had an advance payment at least [?] but there is this exclusion; the COVID apartheid now we're facing [?] [inaudible]. CL Your Excellency, please allow me to come in. The sound is interrupting quite a lot. Is there a chance that on the technical side something can be done? It seems to be interruption in the sound signal at your end. Apologies. We can try again and if possible have your talking points and your elaborations that we can again share in writing also. Please continue, sir, Your Excellency. 00:34:12 HG What I'm trying to say is to address to your number one point; equitable to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatment within and between countries. We did apply and paid our deposit for the COVID vaccine but there is a vaccine apartheid, I'm saying, that we, a small country, have paid a deposit but up to now we didn't get any vaccine. What we got were vaccines donated by our friends, China and India, and I really thank them for that. [Unclear] I sense there is a conflict [unclear] spells harmony. We were left out [inaudible]. That I call apartheid [inaudible] and we fought against apartheid for many [inaudible]. After [inaudible]. Am I audible or what is going on? Because we believe that [inaudible] where the wounds of the past are healed [?]. This has laid the foundation [inaudible]. Every tragedy brings [inaudible]. 00:36:02 TAG Your Excellency... When you restarted it was okay and then it started to break up so I think there is a problem in the audio system. The video is okay but the audio system is breaking up so we have heard up to the vaccines you got from India and China. Later I think there was some break-up again. HG Yes, I was talking about vaccine apartheid; I want to make that very clear as a man who suffered from apartheid [?]; that we are here, we [inaudible] but we didn't get any vaccine. Can I talk? TAG Yes, still breaking up but can you go on? Let's see. HG Okay. Every tragedy [inaudible] new insights. This is true for the COVID-19 pandemic. By its speed, velocity the pandemic compelled humanity to act in unison to overcome a common enemy. The public health measures adopted in most if not all countries around the world demonstrated that the international community achieved consensus to address their common [inaudible]. It demonstrated that [inaudible] the world. We are able to stand together [inaudible]. This, I believe, should be a springboard for the concerted efforts and common purpose to address other equally important challenges facing humanity [inaudible]. 00:38:13 The manner in which [inaudible] responded to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the old adage that says where there is a will there is a way. As world leaders [inaudible] the necessary political will to address the devastation brought by COVID-19 [inaudible] meant that we were able to [inaudible] in various aspects such as expanding [inaudible]. [Broken audio] A fairer and healthier world also means that our global approach necessarily address the root causes of unfairness and poor health in all their manifestations. The social [unclear] of face masks [?] therefore received our full attention. In this regard we must speak not only of availability of facilities and health services but of equitable access to essential tools such as COVID-19 vaccines, as I already said. There is no other alternative [inaudible] pandemic and by so doing to get a fairer and healthier world. Since I am being sabotaged I will end here [unclear]. TAG Thank you. Thank you so much, Your Excellency. Where there is a will there is a way, I fully agree and it's great that Namibia is rolling out vaccines. I was informed also that through the COVAX facilities you will have your share in two weeks. 00:40:40 But I fully agree with the problems we're facing with vaccine equity. As you know, we said vaccine nationalism or vaccine apartheid, as you said, is actually the problem with regard to the pandemic response now because unless everyone is safe no-one will be safe. So it's in every nation's interest or in every country's interest to make sure that there is vaccine equity so I fully agree with you. I now welcome His Excellency President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to reflect on his experience of the pandemic and what's critical to end the acute phase as quickly as possible. He couldn't join us in person so he sent us a video. Please. TR Every year since 1950 we celebrate World Health Day on April 7th but 2021 is a year when the importance of health became even more significant. Having a modern, sustainable, high-quality healthcare system is a priority for every country. Healthcare in Azerbaijan is currently going through a significant change. With implementation of mandatory health insurance Azerbaijan is strengthening the primary healthcare, renovating the emergency medical care services, facilitating the digitalisation by starting an e-health platform and national health accounts within the country. 00:42:28 In the meantime the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to put enormous pressure on healthcare systems around the world. Azerbaijan was among the first countries to mobilise global efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic. We initiated the summit of the Turkic Council in April 2020, the summit of the non-aligned movement in May 2020 and a special session of the United Nations General Assembly at the level of the heads of state and government in December 2020. Honouring its international responsibility, Azerbaijan has made voluntary contributions to the World Health Organization in the amount of US$10 million. We have also provided direct humanitarian and financial assistance to more than 30 countries in their fight with the coronavirus. This year's World Health Day is dedicated to building a fairer and healthier world and the question of equal and fair distribution of vaccines is of paramount importance for this cause. 00:43:39 Yet we all are deeply concerned by the unequal and unfair distribution of vaccines among developing and developed countries. Some countries hoard several times more vaccines compared to their actual needs. It is clear that in such circumstances other countries will face vaccine shortage. Supporting fairness in vaccine distribution, Azerbaijan put forward a draft resolution ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to the coronavirus disease pandemic at the UN Human Rights Council. The resolution was adopted by consensus on March 23rd this year. Azerbaijan was also among the first countries to join and support the COVAX initiative. We and the whole international community expect this initiative to become a model of co-operation and solidarity in response to the pandemic. Only together will we overcome the pandemic and return to normal life. Happy World Health Day. TAG Thank you. Thank you, President Aliyev and I welcome your leadership calling for equitable, timely and universal access to vaccines at the UN Human Rights Council and agree we must do more to ensure vaccines are fairly distributed. 00:45:08 Again thank you so much to all heads of state and government for joining us today. We have a lot to do to achieve health equity but I'm proud to see heads of state leading from the front, which will be key to us strengthening health systems overall and preparing for future pandemics. I thank you. If you have a few minutes more, if you join us for the Q&A with the media we would appreciate it. If not we fully understand. Thank you so much again. Christian, back to you. CL Thank you very much, Director-General. Let me now open the floor to questions from the media. We have a long list already but in case you want to get into the queue please press the raise your hand icon on your screen. First is John Miller from Reuters. John, please unmute yourself. JO Thanks for taking my question. Today we heard from EMA officials, who seemed to suggest that there may well be a link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the rare complications that occur. I'm wondering if you can give us an update on the WHO's own progress in assessing the potential link and when you expect to make your own announcement public. Thanks. 00:46:50 CL Thank you very much. Let me give the floor to Dr Rogerio Gaspar, Director for Regulation and Pre-Qualification. RG Good afternoon. Let me just start by being clear and correct. You mention the European Medicines Agency. As you know, as we were here in the meeting already in this press briefing, there was a denial from the European Medicines Agency concerning the existence of the link. What happens is that there are a number of committees right now and regulatory authorities looking at data - and new data is coming every day - and assessing those data. So there's no link for the moment between the vaccine and the thrombolytic events with thrombocytopenia. Of course it's under evaluation and we wait for some feedback from those committees in the coming days and the coming hours. Just to give a full assessment - probably it is good to give also an assessment with some numbers in it - the data are coming, as I said, every day so we are looking at the pharmacovigilance networks globally and WHO of course is relying heavily on the national pharmacovigilance systems but also on the assessment committees from national regulatory authorities and also from regional regulatory authorities like the European Medicines Agency. The two EULs that were issued by WHO on AstraZeneca-based technologies - one from the manufacturer SKBio in the Republic of Korea and an emergency use authorisation given by the Republic of Korea Regulatory Authority, MFDS, and the second one from the SII in India with the correspondent authorisation also for the Indian regulatory authorities. Both of them are based on the core clinical data that was submitted by AstraZeneca to the European Medicines Agency so the regulatory alignment currently is that we'll rely first on the assessment done by the pharmacovigilance risk assessment committee of the European Medicines Agency which started today at 11:00 and is supposed to continue tomorrow and probably the day after, or not; that will depend on the committee. 00:49:14 We are following that meeting, we have observers on the meeting and we are looking at the data jointly and at the same time, as you know, the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Authority from the United Kingdom, the MHRA, is also looking at the same set of data. So what we can say is that the appraisal that we have for the moment - and this is under consideration by the experts - is that the benefit/risk assessment for the vaccine is still largely positive. We continue to see a number of events that are rare events linking thrombocytopenia to thrombolytic events and those rare events are now being categorised in terms of the diagnostics, in terms of the population, in terms of the distribution within the population. The expert committees will come to decisions in the coming hours and the coming days about what will be the regulatory status of the vaccine. For the time being there's no evidence that the benefit/risk assessment for the vaccine needs to be changed and we know from the data coming from countries like the UK and others that the benefits are really important in terms of reduction of mortality of the populations that are being vaccinated. So one important issue to say also is because in the media and also on the regulatory committees we tend to stress too much the risk when we are discussing these issues and we have to do that, we have also at the same time to balance this with the benefit coming from the vaccine and I think it's important to reiterate this once again. 00:50:48 Another issue which is also important - and that's why WHO is at the same time having a number of information sessions, groups of experts; even this morning we had meetings with several regulatory agencies; during the mid-day break we had a global meeting with experts from different committees for information sharing and disseminating the totality of information that is available. In parallel with current meetings at the European Medicines Agency and the Medicines Health Product Research Authority in the UK we will convene tomorrow also our global advisory committee on vaccine safety that together with other experts will look at those data. So we expect that probably by the end of today or the day after so Wednesday or Thursday we might have a fresh conclusive assessment from our experts but, as I've said already, at the present moment and under the assessment that we have from the data submitted up to yesterday we are confident that the benefit/risk assessment for the vaccine is largely still positive. Thank you. 00:51:54 CL Let me ask Dr Simao... MS Very quickly just to complement because it's very important that everyone is aware, just reinforcing what Dr Rogerio said, that we are collecting data from all regions; the data we have so far is some data observed in the European region because millions and millions of AstraZeneca doses have been distributed and used in Latin America and in Africa, in India and in other countries in Asia. So we are very proactively collecting data from different national regulatory authorities and let me say that we are also in touch with AstraZeneca because AstraZeneca also has an obligation to report, to monitor the safety data and also to report not only to the regulatory authorities but also to WHO. CL Thank you very much. The next question goes to Carmen Pound, Politico. Carmen, please unmute yourself. 00:53:00 CA Thank you so much for giving me the floor and hi, everybody. There've been quite a few reports over the last few days about a number of countries, specifically in Africa, that have received doses through COVAX, in some cases more than a month ago, and either have not deployed them at all or the roll-out is super-slow due to different issues ranging from hesitancy to logistical issues. So I wanted to see if there's any plan to ramp up support for deliveries, if you're looking at what are the specific issues that are impeding the roll-out or faster roll-out in those countries because I've seen that there're even concerns that some of the doses might expire before certain countries are able to inoculate. Thank you. CL Let me ask Dr Bruce Aylward. BA Carmen, thanks so much for the question. It's so important; our goal in rolling out vaccines is to ensure everywhere in the world no doses or vials lie idle and they're out to work as rapidly as possible. 00:54:08 So recognising the challenge it might pose to roll out these vaccines because you're targeting different age groups, different populations than we normally do in many countries that are used to childhood vaccination programmes. As a result there was a huge amount of work that was initiated last fall actually in especially low and low/middle-income countries to try and help first with an assessment across all the different parameters that would need to be optimised to roll out these vaccines, then the development of what we call a national vaccines deployment plan across all of these countries and then a tracking at the international level by region and by country, where countries were in terms of preparedness. So the most important part of this was the huge amount of work that was done in advance and credit really goes to a group of agencies across WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank and others that work together in a concerted effort across countries. Even of course the best-laid plans are going to have challenges. We've seen that in every country in the world that's introduced these vaccines, whether high-income, middle, low-income countries; everyone has struggled in rolling out these vaccines. Part of it is logistical; part of it is related to some of the challenges I just spoke of so in every single country WHO, UNICEF - but not only, also with a broad range of partners - are working with ministries and with communities to try and optimise the roll-out, rapidly identify what are the bottlenecks and as you said even in the question you asked, Carmen, it's a range of issues. 00:55:50 Sometimes it's logistical, sometimes it might be hesitancy. We know that one country suspended the use of one vaccine or didn't want to until some of its concerns were reconciled so there've been a whole range of issues and it really is exactly what you said; a tailored approach in each country to try and help get past any bottlenecks to use so that as rapidly as possible these products can be protecting healthcare workers, protecting in particular the older populations and those at highest risk of the most severe disease. CL Thank you very much, Dr Aylward. With this we come to the next, Gabriela Sotomayor from Notemex, Mexico. 00:56:31 GA Hola, Christian, thanks for taking my question. It's on behalf of Proceso. 2,400 health workers have died in Mexico so my question is about the vaccination of health workers. It is clear that the priority is those who are in the first line of fire, treating patients with COVID. But what happens with the rest of the health personnel, when should they be vaccinated? In Mexico for example 65% of health personnel is under 50 years old and 50% are under 40 so they will be at the end of the line of regular vaccination so there are around one million health workers in this situation. My question is, what is your recommendation because many of them are the first contacts of patients with COVID? Thank you. CL Thank you very much. I will give this to Dr Aylward again, please. BA Thank you, Christian, and thank you, Gabriela, for the question. Clearly, as you've seen and as we've been discussing now for some weeks, certain populations are at higher risk of being exposed to this disease and then certain populations at highest risk of severe disease and death. Of course healthcare workers at the front line are one of the populations that are at highest risk of being exposed and often having high exposures and repeated exposures to the disease. That's the reason that the allocation framework that's been put together prioritises the healthcare workers. 00:58:13 That's healthcare workers irrespective of age. It's actually any healthcare workers that are going to be providing front-line services and at risk. In every country they're sometimes making adjustments in terms of their goals and whether or not the first goal is going to be to reduce the risk in the oldest population and then the healthcare workers or vice versa or by age across both so there is some adaptation or adjustment by country. It's all based on the strength of the healthcare system; it's sometimes based on the clinical outcomes that they're seeing in populations with severe disease in their countries. But in terms of rolling out the healthcare workers generally this has been irrespective of the age. But again as always, Gabriela - and you highlight it - part of the challenge here is just finding the balance with the amount of vaccine that you have available. As everyone knows, we're in an extremely supply-constrained situation so each country has got to make a decision sometimes across these populations; how will I be using these vaccines? 00:59:29 But again healthcare workers, as the Director-General said repeatedly and also our guests today, have to be a top priority as they cannot often protect themselves from being exposed to the disease. CL Thank you very much, Dr Aylward. With this we move to Jamil Chad from Estado Sao Paulo. Jamil, please unmute yourself. JA Hello. Can you hear me? CL All good. JA Dr Tedros, good afternoon. You had a meeting on Saturday with the new Minister of Health of Brazil. My question to you; what was your recommendation to him at this point in time? Thank you very much. TAG Thank you. Thank you so much. Of course we have discussed the measures - starting from the situation, how the situation is serious in Brazil. He started actually by describing the situation, which is really dire, and also what he would like to do. 01:00:48 We agreed on the way forward but to continue also to engage and committed from our side to help him in any way possible. Of course that was my first meeting with the Minister since he was appointed and we will have follow-up meetings, especially to discuss details of the actions that should be taken there will be senior expert-level engagements. Thank you. CL Thank you very much, Dr Tedros. We move to Jenny Layla-Medlow from Devex. Jenny, please unmute yourself. JE Thank you for taking my question. WHO released a statement last week on Ivermectin but as you know, debates continue in a lot of countries. I just want to know, are there plans to include Ivermectin in the Solidarity trials or are you considering other drugs for further trials? Also quickly what are the criteria for including treatments in the Solidarity trials? Thank you very much. CL Thank you very much, Jenny. Who do we have? We were looking to have a colleague online who can answer this. We do not have a colleague available right now to answer this. We'll take your question offline and reply to you by email. With this we move to the next and that will be Jamie Keaton from AP. Jamie, please unmute yourself. 01:02:49 JM Thank you, Christian. Good afternoon, everyone. This question, I think, is for Bruce. Bruce, today all four countries that were represented at this briefing are expected to get AstraZeneca vaccines from SKBio according to GAVI but many other countries are still expecting AstraZeneca vaccines from SII, the Serum Institute. Today we spoke to the CEO, Adar Poonawalla and he said that its exports for COVAX could now resume in June even though GAVI had expressed hope for a resumption in May as the spike in case counts worsens in India. My question; how concerned are you that COVAX will be facing severe supply shortages in the coming months from SII and what can be done about it and how does COVAX survive this major setback that could even last beyond June? Thank you. CL Dr Aylward, please. BA Thanks, Jamie. I think first of all let's not speculate on what's going to happen in terms of future deliveries from any of the companies that we're working with. Right now every country we talk to, every company is trying to make sure that they prioritise COVAX and that we get the vaccines that we need. 01:04:14 Obviously if we have an interruption with any one of our suppliers for a short time, a month or so we can find ways to try and manage as best we can with the countries but if it's longer than that obviously it would be a big challenge. We actually have had some good news over the last few days that some of the additional deliveries from SII have been opened up. You'll remember that there was a challenge but there were some deliveries that have been opened up over the last few days, which will be important to all countries being able to start vaccination by the end of the 100-day period that the Director-General has highlighted. But what I meant by that point, Jamie, was, as you can see, this is a very fluid situation. We've had multiple reports that sometimes vaccine supplies have been cut back by this much or increased by this much and in fact because of the work by the companies and by the governments to increase supply additional supplies have come through. 01:05:20 You'll remember on the AstraZeneca side where we had real challenges with supplies over the last few months, there's been a real pick-up in deliveries with now over 45 countries supplied just from the AstraZeneca side of the supply. So it's a fluid situation; that's the reason why we try and have as robust a portfolio as possible. As you also know, we have got deals with J&J on the Novovax product and other products so part of trying to ensure that if there's a problem with one product, one supplier... making sure that you have other options as well that will come online in the coming weeks and months hopefully. So a range of things to try and address that but clearly were there to be an interruption from any supplier that would be a real problem and that's the reason we're doing so much work to try and look at, as the Director-General said, improving production capacities in the existing suppliers, bringing new suppliers onboard, doing the emergency use listing assessments for yet additional products. All of these steps are to try and mitigate any potential interruption in supply from any supplier. CL Thank you very much, Dr Aylward. Let me call upon Sophie Mkwena from SABC. Sophie, please unmute yourself. 01:06:48 SO My question is around vaccine access, particularly to the developing south or poorer countries. The issue of vaccine passports is becoming more popular and many people are looking at using that to ensure that they are able to manage the spread of COVID-19. What is the position of the WHO on this vaccine passport and also travel restrictions? It's linked also to naming viruses after countries where they are being detected. The issue of 501YV2 still being called a South African virus by even very senior experts in science like Dr Fauci of the United States of America; is this not stigmatising a country that has done so much to try and contribute? CL Thank you very much, Sophie. Dr Van Kerkhove, please. MK Thanks, Sophie. I could start with the second part of your question. I think you know I've been on record talking about the naming of these virus variants and WHO for years has been talking about not including a location as part of a name of a virus, pathogen or the disease caused by that pathogen and SARS-CoV2 variants are no different. 01:08:26 We continue to see people name the variants country X variant or country Y variant and we have been working hard actually on developing a nomenclature with a large group of scientists around the world including the three groups that have developed different nomenclatures for the viruses. I have to admit, I foolishly thought this would be a very simple thing to do. I thought it could be done in a week or two and we're now into, I think, our second month of doing this. We hope to be able to announce the nomenclature very soon because we need to make sure that any of the names that are used do not further stigmatise a person or a last name or a location inadvertently. So we're still working on that but we do hope that countries do not say, the South African variant, including scientists. Unfortunately I hear that on many teleconferences that I'm on and we spend a lot of time talking about these virus variants that are being detected around the world. The more you look the more you will find and with the increases in genomic sequencing that are happening worldwide there are a lot of regional platforms that are being enhanced to make sure that we can find different mutations and different virus variants. 01:09:39 There are a lot of research groups that are out there that are studying each of these mutations and the combinations of mutations, which is what these variants are, to determine if there are any changes in transmissibility, in severity and any potential impact on our available and future diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. So it is really important that we do have names of these virus variants. Right now what we're using is the B117, the virus variant first identified in the United Kingdom; the B1351, the virus variant that was first identified in South Africa, and the P1, which is the virus variant that was first detected in Japan but is circulating in Brazil. There should be no stigma associated with these viruses being detected and unfortunately we still see that happening. Countries that are conducting surveillance, that are carrying out sequencing, that are sharing those sequences on publicly available platforms, that are working with WHO and scientists around the world should not be stigmatised for sharing this information. 01:10:39 In fact we need more of this to be happening worldwide and we will continue to work with partners to ensure that that happens. CL Dr Ryan, please. MR Just on your question regarding certification of vaccination, WHO does support certification of vaccination, be it paper or electronic, as a means of providing personal health information to people who are vaccinated and to give them a record of that vaccination but also for monitoring and evaluation purposes and quality assurance purposes in the healthcare system so having proper certification and recording of vaccination is very important. That's a different consideration to what those certificates are used for outside the health space and that would be certification of vaccination being used to attend work, to attend school, to attend events, to travel nationally or internationally. They are not necessarily related to the health of the individual but to other factors. 01:11:38 This is a complex issue. It has both considerations around how such certification could be utilised to reduce transmission but also around knowledge around the impact of vaccination itself and the way in which vaccination may or may not prevent transmission. There are ethical issues here regarding equity. We already have a huge issue with vaccine equity in the world. The imposition of requirements for certification of vaccination before travel could introduce another layer of such inequity. If you don't have access to vaccine in a country then you effectively become isolated as a country as vaccine passports kick in so there are many, many issues. Currently WHO through the emergency committee of the International Health Regulations have made temporary recommendations to the Director-General that proof of vaccination should not be a requirement, be required for purposes of international travel. 01:12:39 That group will meet again, I believe, on 15th April and I'm sure that recommendation will be under consideration. In the meantime we are bringing together our strategic and technical advisory group on infectious hazards with the strategic advisory group on immunisation and the ethics advisory group of WHO together to look at these issues. Currently we have an internal working group really pulling together the scientific data, the social data, the ethical data so we can come and get the best possible external advice in order to advise our member states regarding the potential use of vaccine passports, as you call them. Thank you. CL Thank you very much. For the last question we go to Robin Niya from AFP. Robin, please unmute yourself. RO Hello. Thank you. Can you hear me? CL Yes. Go ahead. RO Thank you. Within the European Union some countries like Spain and Germany have relatively low rates of new infections whilst other countries like Poland, Estonia and Hungary are seeing some of the highest rates in the world. My question is, in big, big areas like, say, Brazil or in this case the European Union would it make sense to divert vaccines away from areas of low infection and concentrate on areas of high infection to tackle the fire where it's burning most strongly? Thank you. 01:14:15 CL Thank you very much, Robin. Dr Simao, please. MS Let me start and then colleagues can complement. I think it's very important, Robin, to clarify that vaccines are not necessarily a good response to an acute problem because vaccines take time to reach immunity and everything else. So it's extremely important that when you have a lot of community transmission, as we're seeing in some of these countries, what we call the public health measures are taken into account and they're strictly followed. These are the consistent use of masks, hand hygiene, ventilation, avoiding crowds and in some specific cases even lock-downs, as we're seeing in Europe. So we have discussed last year what would be the role and whether we should have a buffer for emergency response related to spikes in transmission. The decision that we made collectively last year was not to do that at this stage because, as I said, vaccines are not a good response for immediate situations. 01:15:38 What you need in the case of high transmission in the community is to decrease the possibilities of transmission. That means avoiding that people get in touch with each other and avoiding crowds and everything else. Also from the epidemiologic perspective no-one can predict where it's going to be rising next; we have seen that, that even in countries that have reached a higher vaccination already we are seeing peaks in communities and peaks in cities and provinces. So it's very difficult to predict what's going to happen next, where the next surge will come. So I think the approach right now is that we're pushing for equitable access to vaccines and that we're pushing, as was discussed already today, to ensure that people at high risk of infection or people like, as was mentioned before, the healthcare workers and also people at higher risk of dying, older people and people with comorbidities, associated diseases are put first. We think this should happen; WHO's position is that this should happen in all countries, not only specific countries. Thank you. 01:17:10 CL Thank you very much for this. We have an add-on from Dr Van Kerkhove. MK Yes, thank you. I do want to come in on this because I think we need to remind everybody that vaccination is one element of the response strategy and, as Mariangela has said and as you have heard us say repeatedly, over and over again, we are accused often of being a broken record and we will be happy to continue being this broken record until this pandemic is over. But there are a number of elements, interventions that can be used that drive down transmission. Globally we have passed the sixth week in a row when we have seen a consecutive increase in cases around the world. Last week there were four million new cases reported to WHO and that is likely an underestimate of the true infections that have been occurring globally. We are seeing this in all of our regions. There's a slight decline in Europe but there are still significant increases in a number of countries like France, Turkey, Italy, Ukraine. The US continues to have increased.... Sorry; the Americas continues to have increased transmission driven by Brazil, Canada, Argentina, Colombia, the US; the same thing in South-East Asia, a number of countries; we can go on and on. 01:18:24 All of this data is in our dashboard but we continue to see increases in transmission and we have to remind everyone that there are a number of interventions. This the tried and true measures, these public health measures that drive transmission down. It's this all-of-government, all-of-society approach. It's about knowing where the virus is circulating so having good, strategic testing linked to public health action, ensuring that cases are isolated, that they receive appropriate care. It's contact tracing of contacts of known cases that are in supported quarantine so that they, if they are infected, do not have the possibility to transmit the virus onward. It's about getting into the clinical care pathway early so that individuals who are infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus are seen and are assessed so that they are treated and cared for appropriately. It is making sure that we have engaged, informed, empowered communities so that they know what they need to do. We understand that the situation is evolving. The situation where you live change so following guidance and following the local recommendations is really important. 01:19:36 There is very good information out there that tells you in the area where you live, in the area where you work what is safe to do and what is not. At an individual level it's about physical distancing, it's about wearing a mask, it's about practising respiratory etiquette, making sure you have clean hands, making sure that you have good ventilation, you avoid crowded areas. All of this matters. This will not change until this pandemic is over so we cannot rely all on vaccines and vaccinations. We have to continue to put in the individual-level measures. We need communities that are supportive. If there is a stay-at-home measure in place we need governments to support individuals to be at home. All of this still matters so we will continue to be this broken record and remind the world that there is a strategy out there about suppressing transmission. 01:20:26 This guidance, this strategy was issued on 4th January last year and it still is the maintained strategy of what we have now to drive transmission down, adding vaccines and vaccination into the mix so that we keep transmission low and we open up our societies. So we cannot forget that there are a number of measures that are in place that we have the power to use now. CL Thank you so much for this and thank you all for your participation, especially our special guests. We will be sending the audio files right after this and we hope to include the speech of the President of Namibia. With this let me hand over to Dr Tedros. MR Christian, can I just... CL Pardon me. MR Just an update on our previous question regarding Ivermectin; just to confirm that Ivermectin is not currently included in the Solidarity trial but there are trials ongoing in other countries. The latest recommendations from WHO indicate that the evidence on the use of Ivermectin is not conclusive and further studies are recommended, particularly in large-scale randomised-control trials. 01:21:46 With regard to the progress within the Solidarity trial an independent panel of experts uses a set of defined criteria to pre-select potential drugs into the trial. A prioritisation working group then reviews the panel of experts' recommendations and then finally what gets through that group goes to the trial steering committee who then endorse those recommendations and introduce those drugs into the trial. So there are three different independent panels of experts who filter all the potential drugs. There's a series of criteria that are used around pharmacokinetics, plausible evidence on the mechanism of action, animal data, safety data, availability of the drug. Currently a number of drugs are under consideration for the trial including three new drugs and we've been really trying to get to this, moving not away from old drugs because old drugs, as we've seen, like dexamethasone have proved life-saving, but really beginning to test the newer molecules and drugs that are coming online so we look forward to the next selection of drugs for the Solidarity trial. 01:22:57 CL Thank you so much, Dr Ryan. This was in clarification to a question from Devex. Now with this let me hand over to the Director-General for closing remarks and to thank the guests. TAG Yes, thank you very much. I would like to invite Her Excellency Prime Minister Mottley to say a few words to close this session. Your Excellency, you have the floor. MM Thank you very much, Dr Tedros. I was very engaged during the course of questioning. This is very much still a fluid event for all of us in the world but it is one that really has the capacity to upend developing countries and we need to ensure that as we fight the pandemic we also put down the tools to avert a debt crisis which is potentially on us if we do not get it right. As I speak to you, the Chairman of the Caribbean Community has regrettably tested positive, Prime Minister Keith Rowley. I know that you have been in contact with him recently and I would therefore want to express our deepest concerns for his urgent and quick recovery. 01:24:10 But this just drives home the point that until we deal with this with all people we haven't dealt with it and I trust and pray that these continued works and the World Health Day tomorrow will remind us of the urgency of co-ordinated action and of the urgency of acting together. We look forward to the continued support of WHO and PAHO, particularly for those countries who have limitations in terms of the depth of technical resources and it is for that we continue to pray that we have access because that makes all of the difference to people living. We heard very clearly that global transmission has increased over the last six weeks and to that extent we continue to remind persons that there is no mechanism at the individual level that is too much to protect your lives from the personal protocols right back through to what we will do at the global level and at the national level to give people access to vaccines ahead of time, ahead of the battle with the variants. 01:25:21 So thank you very much, Dr Tedros, and I look forward to continuing to work with the World Health Organization on PAHO as we come on top and win this battle against COVID-19 which has done so much to decimate so many. The tail of it regrettably is long and we work towards ensuring that we can reduce the consequences of that tail on our people as well. Thank you. TAG Thank you. Thank you so much, Your Excellency. I fully agree with what you said and also I join you in expressing my wishes for fast recovery to His Excellency Prime Minister Rowley. I would also like to thank all heads of state who have joined today; His Excellency President Geingob, His Excellency President Alvarado and also His Excellency President Aliyev. Thank you so much once more and thank you so much for your leadership. Finally tomorrow we will publish an additional shortlist of films for the Health For All film festival. This fourth shortlist is dedicated to health equity. I invite the public to post questions in the comments section of the shortlisted videos, which are available on YouTube and through the WHO website. Some of your questions will be asked to the jurors and winners during the awards ceremony, to be streamed on WHO's YouTube channel on 13th May 2021. Thank you to all journalists also finally for joining and see you in our upcoming presser. Thank you so much. 01:27:26

Media briefing on COVID-19 - 11/12/2020

00:03:06 FC Hello, everybody. I am Fadela Chaib, speaking to you from WHO headquarters in Geneva and welcoming you to our global COVID-19 press conference today, Friday 11th December. Present in the room are the WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros, Dr Mike Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead for COVID-19, Dr Ed Kelley, Director, Integrated Health Services, Dr Bruce Aylward, Special Advisor to the DG and who leads on the ACT Accelerator. Joining us remotely are Dr Soumya Swaminathan, our Chief Scientist, Dr Kate O'Brien, Director, Immunisation, Vaccines and Biologicals and Mr Joe Kutzin, who leads the WHO Health Financing team at WHO. Welcome, all. Simultaneous interpretation is provided in the six official UN languages plus Portuguese and Hindi. Now without further delay I would like to hand over to Dr Tedros for his opening remarks. Dr Tedros, the floor is yours. TAG Thank you. Thank you so much, Fadela. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. This week vaccines against COVID-19 have started to be rolled out in the United Kingdom and we expect more countries to follow. To have safe and effective vaccines against a virus that was completely unknown to us only a year ago is an astounding scientific achievement. 00:05:02 But an ever greater achievement would be to ensure all countries enjoy the benefits of science equitably. WHO and our partners are focusing on three priorities. First we face an immediate funding gap of US$4.3 billion to procure vaccines for the most needy countries. I urge donors to fill this gap quickly so that vaccines can be secured, lives can be saved and a truly global economic recovery is accelerated. Second we have worked hard to secure political commitment from world leaders for equitable access to vaccines but we would like to see that commitment being translated into action. Third we're preparing countries to deliver countries by assessing gaps in infrastructure. Already almost one billion doses of three vaccine candidates have been secured as part of the COVAX facility and 189 countries are now participating. Our COVAX partner, GAVI, is in discussions with several other manufacturers and further deals will be announced in the near future. 00:06:25 Simultaneously WHO is working with GAVI and UNICEF to evaluate the first set of requests received from countries who are eligible for assistance through the COVAX facility. Addressing the financing gap is an urgent priority. On Monday WHO and the European Commission are reconvening the facilitation council for the ACT Accelerator with our co-chairs, Norway and South Africa. The council will scrutinise our strategic priorities and a draft financing framework to close the ACT Accelerator financing gap for 2021. This is crucial to ensuring all people everywhere are protected. We have all seen images of people being vaccinated against COVID-19. We want to see the same images all over the world and that will be a true sign of solidarity. Yesterday was Human Rights Day and tomorrow is Universal Health Coverage Day. These two days coming so close together at the end of this very difficult year are a reminder that as we rebuild from this crisis we must do so on the foundation of human rights including the rights to health. 00:08:03 2020 has reminded us that health is the most precious commodity on Earth. In the face of the pandemic many countries have offered free testing and treatment for COVID-19 and promised free vaccination for their populations. They have recognised that the ability to pay should not be the difference between sickness and health, between life and death. This year Universal Health Coverage Day takes on even more importance than usual. Apart from the death and disease caused by the virus itself millions of people have suffered and died as a result of disruption to essential health services. This week WHO is launching two initiatives to support and rapidly accelerate countries' journey towards universal health coverage. The first is a global programme to strengthen primary healthcare, better equipping countries to prevent and respond to emergencies of all kinds from the personal crisis of a heart attack to an outbreak of a new and deadly virus. The second is a new UHC compendium designed to help countries develop the packages of services they need to meet their people's health needs. WHO is also launching a new report that provides the first analysis of how global health spending has changed during 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 00:09:46 Many governments have responded to the pandemic with exceptional budget allocations for their health systems and even larger allocations for economic stabilisation and social protection. At the same time COVID-19 has triggered a deep global economic crisis that could have a long-lasting impact on health financing. Public revenues are declining, forcing many countries to take on additional debt which will impact lower-income countries whose economies were vulnerable before COVID-19 struck. The report warns that higher debt servicing could make it more difficult to maintain public spending on health. But this is precisely the moment for investing in health. The pandemic has demonstrated that health is not a luxury. It is the foundation of social, economic and political stability. Indeed today's report highlights that the COVID-19 crisis provides an opportunity for a reset in countries with weak health financing systems. It makes six key recommendations for a new health financing compact. To draw more attention to universal health coverage we have also made it one of the main categories in the second WHO health for all film festival. 00:11:22 We're inviting all film-makers, whether professional or amateur, to submit short films focusing on access to quality care for any health need by 30th January 2021. Several hundred films have already been submitted and the two other categories for the festival are health emergencies, in which we invite short films about COVID and other humanitarian crises, and better health and well-being, in which we invite films about climate change, pollution, sanitation, nutrition, gender issues and more. We know that although children are less at risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19 than older adults millions of children have suffered from the pandemic in other ways including disruption to their education. According to data collected by UNESCO classrooms for nearly one in five schoolchildren globally or 320 million were closed as of 1st December, an increase of nearly 90 million in just one month. 00:12:41 In some places children have been out of school for nine months or more. Prolonged school closures are presenting an unprecedented challenge to children's education, health and well-being. Today WHO has released a new checklist to support schools in reopening and in preparing for resurgences of COVID-19 and similar public health crises. It lists 38 essential actions; a new checklist to support schools in reopening and in preparing for resurgence of COVID-19 and similar public health crises. It lists 38 essential actions to be considered by different stakeholders as they work to agree school reopening plans. More than 66 million cases of COVID-19 and 1.5 million deaths have now been reported to WHO. In the past six weeks the number of weekly deaths has increased by around 60%. Most cases and deaths are in Europe and the Americas. The festive season is a time to relax and to celebrate but we must not relax our guard. Celebration can very quickly turn to sadness if we fail to take the right precautions. As you prepare to celebrate over the coming weeks please, please consider your plans carefully. If you live in an area with high transmission please take every precaution to keep yourselves and others safe. That could be the best gift you could give; the gift of health, life, love, joy and hope. I repeat; the gift this season, the best gift this season you could give is the gift of health, life, love, joy and hope. I thank you. Happy holidays. 00:15:15 FC Thank you, Dr Tedros. I will now open the floor to questions from members of the media. I remind you that you need to use the raise your hand icon in order to get in the queue to ask your question. I think we will start with Laurent Zero from ATS, Swiss news agency. Laurent, can you hear me? LA Yes, thank you, Fadela. Can you hear me? FC Very well. Go ahead, please, Laurent. LA Very good. We have observed in recent weeks a trend downwards in countries like Switzerland and some of its neighbouring countries but then more recently since one week ago there is a kind of plateau at a high number of cases despite strong measures that have been taken by the different governments. How do you explain that? Thank you. 00:16:20 FC Thank you, Laurent. I'd like to invite Dr Van Kerkhove to take this question. MK Thank you for the question. Indeed across many countries in Europe we have started to see a decline in cases and I think that's a result of the measures that have been put in place and individuals who are adhering to those measures. But as you've said, it's starting to plateau in some locations and what this means is that we need to stay the course, we need to follow through, we need to continue to practise the physical distancing, staying home if asked, teleworking, following all the measures that are put in place to keep ourselves safe whether these are individual-level measures such as physical distancing, the wearing of masks, cleaning your hands, practising good respiratory etiquette, whether you are asked to stay at home; continue to stay at home. But we have to follow through. I think one of the lessons we can learn, especially across Europe, is over the summer Europe showed us that they brought transmission under control. In many countries cases were down to single digits and that can and that will be done again but we really must be vigilant and we really must stay the course. 00:17:26 Given the holidays that are coming up, as the Director-General just said, it is a time when many people want to come together but we really need to make very careful decisions about how we celebrate this year. We will celebrate but maybe it means we celebrate with just our households and maybe we do another type of Zoom celebration, as we will do with my family this year. But we do need to stay strong and we do need to make sure that we keep ourselves separated from others for the time being while we have the good news of vaccines coming online. But again just to repeat, we need to stay the course. It's very easy for us to go up quickly in case incidence. It takes quite some time to actually come down the other side of the mountain, as you've heard Mike say, in the spring so we have to follow through but we will do it, Europe will do this again and they will show us how to bring it under control. 00:18:24 MR I think, Maria, you're absolutely spot-on. I'll just repeat two of your words; follow through, make sure this time that we follow through on the measures. If we continue to build public health surveillance, we continue to work with communities to maintain those measures around physical distance, personal hygiene, avoiding crowds and then we add vaccines gradually in the coming year we can avoid the lock-downs. So this is about us all following through on our commitments as individuals, as communities and as governments in the coming months. FC Thank you. I would like now to call on Jason Bobia from NPR to ask the next question. Jason, are you with us? JA Yes, thank you very much. You mentioned, Dr Tedros, that the UK has now started vaccinating and the US appears to be on the verge of authorising the Pfizer vaccine and you talked about the need for equitable distribution but obviously that distribution can't start in many places until the WHO authorises a vaccine. Can you give us an update on when we can expect the WHO to authorise a vaccine that can start being distributed through COVAX? FC Thank you, Jason. We have with us remotely Dr O'Brien and Dr Soumya Swaminathan. Kate, do you want to start? Or Dr Swaminathan. 00:19:57 SS I don't think Kate is connected. FC Okay. Dr Swaminathan, you have the floor. SS Thank you, Fadela. Yes, I can start. The WHO has put out our criteria for emergency use licensing and we are open to receiving submissions from all manufacturers who are interested. In fact we've received several and it's a rolling submission so as more data is accumulated from the different phases of trials it's provided to WHO so that we're up to date and we can stay as updated as possible. We are now going to be looking at the Pfizer dossier followed by a couple of others as they come in and we expect that... We work quite closely with the European Medicine Agency along with some of the other national regulatory agencies and so we expect that in the next couple of weeks our committees will be reviewing the Pfizer BioNTech dossier and coming out with an opinion. Thank you. 00:21:11 FC Thank you. I think Dr Aylward would like to add something. BA Yes, thanks so much and, Jason, thanks for the question; super-important. When we established the COVAX facility to make sure that there would be absolutely no barriers to the most rapid access to vaccines possible for all countries in the world we're actually using a slightly different process and we are indeed looking at these products though the WHO emergency use listing procedure. At the same time we have an exceptional procedure in place where some products that are approved by what we call a stringent regulatory authority can also be considered by the COVAX facility so there will be no barrier to the speed with which these products could potentially be used globally. FC Thank you. I would like now to call on Isabel Sacco from EFE, the Spanish news agency. Isabel, you have the floor. IS Yes, good afternoon. I have more or less the same question as the previous one. I would like maybe to ask again if Dr Soumya can identify the vaccine candidates that WHO is reviewing and for the general public if she can explain the importance of this review by WHO, taking into account that we all know that there are many other national regulatory agencies that are doing the same procedure. Thank you. 00:22:59 FC Thank you, Isabel. Dr Swaminathan. SS Yes, thank you for that question. Indeed it's a bit confusing because, as you rightly pointed out, national regulatory authorities do have the mandate and the jurisdiction to make these assessments and decisions for use within their own countries so every national regulatory authority has the authority and the mandate to do that but that's limited to their own countries. Several countries rely on WHO's pre-qualification service for vaccines and for drugs and that's a service that WHO provides also for global procurement agencies like UNICEF and GAVI because it's a stamp of quality, safety, efficacy and manufacturing quality. 00:23:54 In the case of the emergency use licence of course we base this assessment on limited amounts of data and that's clearly laid out in the criteria so what should be the minimum efficacy, what's the minimum safety data that's needed as well as of course all the manufacturing details around the quality of the product. So, as I mentioned, we have opened the expressions of interest several weeks ago, I think it was about four to six weeks ago and we have been receiving both enquiries as well as submissions of dossiers from several companies, at least ten companies have either expressed an interest or submitted initial dossiers. The data will only be considered for an emergency use licence when there are some phase-three clinical trial results available and so there are only a couple of companies now that have those phase-three results and those are interim results. So we've started with the Pfizer dossier; we expect also to have the Moderna followed by the AstraZeneca dossiers examined in the next few weeks and we will be coming out with the decision, whether it is receiving an emergency use licence or not. The other thing that we're doing is of course working with the regulatory agencies, the International Coalition for Medical Regulatory Agencies, the ICMRA, with whom we have a letter of agreement now on how we would work together so that we can speed up things further. 00:25:36 We have regulators from several countries actually who have stepped up and volunteered to help the assessments that WHO will be performing so these will be joint assessments done with national regulatory agencies. We have asked countries also to prepare for licensing of vaccines by either accepting the WHO EUL or PQ procedures or by accepting one of the stringent regulatory authorities, as Bruce was just mentioning, so that they are in a position to receive vaccine doses from the COVAX facility. They have to accept either of these. What we don't want is for every country to start an assessment process for every vaccine because that's just going to take far too long and so therefore it is important to rely on a few regulatory agencies globally plus the WHO process. Thank you. FC Thank you, Dr Swaminathan. Dr Ed Kelley would like to add something. 00:26:35 EK Yes, thanks, Fadela. Just to complement the points made by Soumya on this, one of the pieces of work certainly is getting the vaccine through the regulatory process and getting it reviewed here at WHO but as we've always said, it's not the vaccines but vaccinations and vaccination programmes that will end up protecting people and there's tons of work going on right now; in fact the entire ACT Accelerator in many ways, as the person doing a lot of the work on the Health Systems Connector, has pivoted to support the assessment in countries. We were targeting 100 countries; we've now got 105 assessments already in and the picture of what is going on and how countries are preparing not just on the regulatory work, which does need some more work, but also on safety monitoring systems. We've got over 65% of countries that have already got safety monitoring systems in place so all of that work will be as important as the work that Soumya just mentioned. FC Thank you. I would like now to invite Jeremy Lunge from Radio France International, RFI, to ask the next question. Jeremy, do you hear me? JE Yes, I can hear you, Fadela. Thank you so much. A question about testing; a lot of people are thinking about getting tested ahead of Christmas. In France the Health Minister advised against it, saying that it might provide a false feeling of safety. I would like to know, do you have any comment on that, do you advise against or for testing before Christmas? Thank you. MR We certainly advise that all patients who are suspected of having COVID-19 are tested and that we expand testing through the use of rapid diagnostic tests in specific circumstances. Maria can go into details of how we see the strategic expansion of testing but we need more testing, not less. I think the Minister may have been relating to the specific issue of individual risk. Finding as many infected people in the community is very important but when you get a test and you test positive or negative on a certain day it doesn't mean you will test negative the next day or the next day. So doing more testing to find infected people; yes, good. Relying on a single test to guide your behaviour in the coming days or who you can meet or what you can do is problematic because knowing your status today does not guarantee your status tomorrow. 00:29:17 So we must sustain the behaviours of physical distancing, wearing masks, avoiding crowded spaces, ensuring we're using appropriate ventilation and doing all those things to minimise risk in those environments. That does not mean that targeted, strategic testing is not a good idea. We want to see an expansion of testing but we want to see it done for public health purposes. Individuals who have the resources to have themselves tested; there is nothing wrong with getting a test. It's really how you interpret that result and how that affects your behaviour and how it should or shouldn't affect your behaviour. Maria. MK Yes, thanks. Just to supplement what Mike has said, we encourage, we advise, we recommend strategic testing. We have since the beginning and anyone who meets the suspected case definition should be tested. We work very hard through our regional offices and our country offices to build testing capacity. This has been a PCR-based testing capacity and now all countries are able to test for COVID-19, test for SARS-Co-V-2 infection, the virus that causes COVID-19 and that is really quite an incredible feat. We now have antigen-based rapid diagnostic tests that are coming online. These are cheaper, quicker, easier to use and we recommend these be used in areas where there's a lot of virus, where there's a lot of virus circulating, where there are outbreaks that are happening, in areas potentially screening individuals like health workers who are at a higher risk of exposure because they had direct contact with known patients. 00:30:48 Those are really helpful to alleviate some of the pressure on the PCR-based system but testing for testing's sake must be linked to public health action, it must be linked to isolation of cases, clinical care of cases, contact tracing, supported quarantine of those contacts. As Mike has said, a test result gives you the result of that sample that was collected at the time of testing. You could become infected between the time that you took that test and the time you get that result back, which is why it's really important that we not only get tested with a high-quality either PCR or antigen-based test but that you get that result back quickly and you follow through with the public health actions that are there. 00:31:32 So in some countries testing will be expanded and this is good and we have seen a global expansion of testing but again it needs to to be fit for purpose, it needs to be linked to cluster investigations and case finding and making sure that you're working towards your goal of reducing transmission and you're breaking chains of transmission. So there are good products that are coming online. These rapid antigen-based tests are a game-changer in many ways because they can be used in lots of different settings and take the pressure off the PCR systems. But again we still, all of us, need to adhere to all of the measures that keep ourselves safe, keep our loved ones safe so keep up that physical distancing, keep following all of the measures that are put in place in the local area where you live, which is based on the transmission that's happening around you. FC Thank you. Moving now to Cancun in Mexico I would like to invite Paulina Alcazar from Ancadena News to ask the next question. Paulina, do you hear me? TR Yes, Fadela. Can you hear me? Thank you. Good day to everyone from Cancun. What considerations should be taken into account with the high number of reinfections or is it considered as a long COVID, a persistent COVID when someone is positive again at a test several months later? What do we consider it as? 00:33:07 MK Thanks for the question. There're two aspects to the question that you've asked. One is about reinfection and I think the other one is about long COVID so these are two separate things and let me just break them down very briefly. We do know that there are some individuals who may be reinfected with this virus and this has been detected in a number of countries that have good lab systems, that have been able to do a sequence of the first infection and a sequence of the subsequent, second infection and they can tell that there's a difference in that virus, a slight difference because the virus changes and that is indeed a subsequent infection. This is now starting to be picked up in a number of countries and we have more than 69 million cases that have been reported globally but the number of reinfections is a lot smaller than that. We're working with countries to help them better define what a reinfection is and to help them look to see how often this is happening. 00:34:04 So it doesn't seem to be happening very often but we can't quantify that at the current moment. The question around long COVID is that there are individuals who've been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, they have an acute disease where they're very unwell or they're mildly unwell and then they seem to recover but they're having longer-term effects. We are learning more and more about what long COVID is in terms of the effect on the body. It seems to affect many different organ systems. It's not just a respiratory illness of two weeks; it seems to persist for months. We're working with many different patient groups, we're working with many different researchers to better understand what is happening. We have met and the Director-General has met with patient groups and the patient groups have said to us what they need is recognition that this is real and this is real and there's now an ICD code for what's called post-COVID syndrome. We're working with them because we need better research to understand the extent of this in different populations, to understand what disease looks like in terms of the long-term effects and the different effects on the organ systems and also rehab. 00:35:20 So we're working with clinicians to better design and work on rehabilitation for individuals who are suffering from this, to ensure that we give them the best care possible so we have a lot to learn in this area. There was a forum that was organised this week by ISARK [?] and partners which WHO participated in and we have seminars and working groups that have been established specifically to look at this so that we can provide adequate care. MR Let me just emphasise what Maria's been saying; it is best that we all try to avoid this infection and not to have to be concerned about your health going forward; also to reassure people, yes, the vast majority of people do have an infection that doesn't result in ongoing specific effects. But there's a significant minority of people who are suffering very, very long into a post-COVID period and our hearts go out to them as they approach this Christmas period because sometimes in life mortality and death is recognised and we all sympathise. It's very hard when you're carrying the after-effects of an illness; it can be a very lonely experience and people don't want to attract attention to themselves because people may think, I'm infected and I'm still coughing. 00:36:40 So people are going through a lot of psychological trauma as well as having those lingering effects so I think we should all be very kind to each other and particularly kind to those who've had to fight through very difficult infections and have the continued concern of the long-term impacts on their family. To our journalist I would say, given the weather here in Geneva we would love to be with you in Cancun. FC True. Let's go to Georgia; I think it's cold in Georgia. I would like to invite a journalist from Georgian television, Imeda, Kitivan Kardava, to ask the next question. Kitivan, are you with us? KI Yes. Good evening. Can you hear me? FC Very well. Go ahead, please. KI Thank you very much for this opportunity, Mr Director-General. When you were talking about vaccine and about the news about vaccine you said recently that a beam appeared at the end of the tunnel. How bright is that ray today, can you tell us? 00:37:48 As I represent Georgia I want to ask you about Georgia. Thousands of people are infected in my country every day. What would you say to the population of Georgia? They are watching your statements carefully every week. Also I have a question about information campaigns; how should information campaigns about vaccination be conducted so that the people have a confidence in the vaccine? We all know that vaccine will be effective in the case when people have confidence and trust in it. Thank you very much. FC Thank you. These are three questions. Maybe Dr Aylward would like to start. BA Sure, and Soumya may wish to come in on the issue around the confidence and everything that's being done to build that but in terms of the comment the Director-General made last week about the light at the end of the tunnel, I think was the phrase, and how bright that is, that light is getting brighter in fact. 00:39:00 If you look week by week at the number of companies that are announcing positive results in terms of the efficacy of vaccines that number is increasing and what's important is it's increasing not just in terms of the number of products but also the different technology platforms that they are being built on. As we're seeing now, there're three different technology platforms, as we'd call them, that have reported very positive efficacy and safety data. We haven't seen and scrutinised all of the data behind that, as we've emphasised multiple times. Some of this is still in press reports but it's positive which means that beam is looking brighter, to the point that you asked. But at the same time there're other considerations and Mike emphasises this repeatedly and Maria. I think it's so important an that is that there are real challenges with volumes; these are still very, very scarce products and just as some companies are announcing successes there are others - and we've had two over the last few days - that have said they have challenges with their product either in terms of the volumes they can produce or in terms of some of the trial results. 00:40:09 So this reminds us that while the beam, as you said, or light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter over time it's still a long tunnel to get out of the battle against COVID and we still have a long winter in front of us. I think, to the points that Mike emphasises again and again, we have to do everything and we need to continue doing everything for the foreseeable future because with that light at the end of the tunnel we should have a new energy now to do the case finding right, do the contact tracing right, do the isolation right. So what this really should give us is the hope and the stamina to be managing this disease and implementing those measures that much more strongly in the near term. Perhaps Soumya'd like to comment to the broader agenda of work on confidence building. FC Thank you. Dr Ryan. 00:41:01 MR No, with specific reference to Georgia itself, Georgia's had a tough time over the last number of weeks. It's had a very steep rise in cases and has reached pretty high cases per million population overall although that's stabilised in the last week; there's been a 9% increase in cases in the last week and, I think, an 8% increase in deaths. So Georgia's had - certainly in the first wave earlier in the year Georgia managed to avoid a good deal of the impact of the first elements of this pandemic but has been hit quite hard this time around. I think the positive answers or news are that the case fatality rate has been relatively low and again credit to front-line doctors and nurses who continue to maintain front-line services. But I think the story here too for Georgia - and I think it's something that every country needs to look at; past success or past avoidance of a given scenario does not mean that that scenario can be avoided the next time around. You may have dodged a bullet the last time; you may get hit hard this time and therefore it's really important that you understand in a given setting... You see situations like for example at the moment in Korea and in Japan; they've been dealing with a bounce in cases in the last couple of weeks. Korea's been an extremely high performer in the area of disease control but it's going to have to turn and fight that disease again and each and every time there may be different risk groups, it may be a different part of the country, it may be a different age group. 00:42:35 Each time you fight this battle there are slightly different tactics required and that's why you need to be agile, you need to look at what's happening in your country, you need to not make assumptions about what's going to happen or things are going to go away or going to disappear or whatever all the other euphemisms are for this. You've got to fight what you see; knowledge and data drives that, understanding what's happening and then giving people the right information, intervening aggressively in the right places, adapting your control measures to the situation you see on the ground, expanding your testing and improving your capacity to understand clusters and amplification events and then supporting people in avoiding crowded settings and doing all of the other things we need to do. 00:43:16 The DG keeps saying it again and again; do it all. But I would also say, do it smart, when you have limited resources do it smart as well and use those resources and drive your public health interventions with the intelligence that comes from using science and using data, a data-driven, science, driven approach. Again Georgia is turning that corner. It is not an easy time and we've seen in Europe that as the disease has come under control in many of the Western European countries, many Central European countries, in the Caucasus and even in central Asia have continued to have a difficult time and then that shows how this disease is in a different... We're not in an epidemiologically stable situation. The virus is still working its way through the human population. The vast majority of people remain susceptible so it has not settled down into a pattern that you can predict and say, oh, this is what's going to happen next week and the week after. That is not the case and there are potentially unique aspects of every country's culture and behaviour and set-up that can drive transmission one way or the other. Maria. MK I just want to say, it's moving around from your question a little bit but I just want to highlight some of the things Mike has just said there. 00:44:31 It is about being in a state of readiness. We know so much more now, we're using data to drive our actions and if a country is having an increase in cases as we're seeing in Georgia you still have experience. There's a lot of experience and knowledge that is being used to help tailor the approach to what needs to be done, where it needs to be done and for the amount of time that it needs to be done. That's done at a political level, it's done at a community level, it's done at an individual level and with the example of Korea - and we could choose a number of countries that have seen a resurgence - it's about that state of readiness. If you use the system that you have in place - the world is not in the same place we were in a year ago. Many countries have built up this public health infrastructure, some at a faster rate than others but we still need to continue to invest in people in a workforce that can do active case finding, that can carry out those tests and that strategic testing so that lab results get back quicker, so that we carry out the contact tracing and the cluster investigations. 00:45:32 This virus likes people, it needs people to transmit between. It's primarily transmitting between people in close contact with one another. If you put a lot of people together, you're in an enclosed space, you add poor ventilation you are providing an ample opportunity for this virus to spread. We can take actions that can prevent all of that from happening and I think that's what's really critical right now. As Bruce said, as the vaccines are coming online there's a lot of hope that we have but I think many people will also feel a little bit frustrated because we won't be able to get to that light at the end of the tunnel as fast as we want to. We have to remain vigilant and your question was what should we tell the people of Georgia. Hang in there, do everything that you can to protect yourself and to protect your loved ones. You have individual-level measures that you can have. You have knowledge about where this virus is, how it spreads and you have the power to take decisions. 00:46:27 Each of these decisions that you take can minimise your risk. We are telling everyone, know your risk and take steps to lower that risk. We want people to feel empowered, that there's a lot you can do and again, especially as we're seeing in this holiday season, please make the right decisions to keep yourselves safe. While we are seeing in many countries across Europe a decline in cases, as the Director-General has said, the percent increase in deaths globally, as the Director-General said, has been a 60% increase in the last six weeks; a 60% increase in deaths in the last six weeks. That is not evenly distributed around the world where we've seen in EMRO a 10% increase, in AFRO a 50% increase, in EURO almost a 100% increase in deaths over the last six weeks, SIERO 7.5%, PAHO 54%, WPRO 15% so it isn't evenly distributed. This virus is still circulating. Most of the world remains at risk. We can take steps to protect ourselves. Please do everything you can to protect yourself and your loved ones. FC Thank you. Dr Tedros. 00:47:40 TAG Thank you. This is a rare treat from Georgia so thank you and greetings to Georgia first of all. That question is very important. As Bruce said, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter - I fully agree - with more vaccines now in the pipeline. At the same time we have to also focus on some of the challenges we're facing to make the light really completely bright. There are three major areas where we're focused and the challenges we're facing are associated with those. Number one, funding. There is a need for immediate funding of up to US$4 billion; that's one. Second, we have all followed what has been happening in the last few months. Many world leaders, our political leaders have pledged to make vaccines a global public good. That pledge has to be translated into action so that's second. We expect our leaders to really honour their pledge. We see some concerns but I hope we will have the vaccines on the ground based on the pledges that have been made. Third is infrastructure; the whole supply chain, especially of developing countries, has to be strengthened, has to be prepared; the supply chain, training of health workers and so on. We're doing that and that's the other area where we're focusing because when we do these three things - the funding, the political commitment translated into action and preparing the infrastructure - then the vaccines that are coming into the pipeline will lead into vaccination. 00:49:49 At the end of the day the most important part of the whole process is when you see people vaccinated, when they have the inoculation and when that is done fairly and when that's done globally. When that's done then the world can recover faster and, as we said many times, sharing the vaccine and having the inoculation everywhere in all countries means faster recovery and it's in the interests of each and every country in the world. Lives and livelihoods will get back to the new normal and we believe that's what the world wants. Thank you. FC Thank you, Dr Tedros. Dr Swaminathan, you have the floor. SS Thank you, Fadela. Very quickly on building confidence in vaccines, which was the third question. It's really important that governments and public health officials start communicating with citizens in their countries to explain to them the process of the deployment of the vaccines because things are happening extremely fast and people are anxious for information, they have a lot of questions and very often it's genuine questions that people have that need to be answered. 00:51:23 They may have some fears that need to be allayed but a lot of times it's questions and doubts which really need to be addressed and it's only a minority of people, I think, who are anti-vaccine. The surveys that have been done showed that the majority of the world's people actually want a vaccine, they're waiting for a vaccine, they can't get it soon enough. At the same time they may have questions so this is the time to explain to people who are the population groups who have been prioritised, why have they been prioritised, when are the doses likely to come. The fact is that we are going to have limited doses in the first half of 2021 all over the world. Dose supplies are going to be limited. We need to prioritise those who are at the highest risk of getting the infection or dying from the infection. These are our front-line workers, our healthcare workers and the very elderly who are the most susceptible. 00:52:19 The rest of us have to be a little more patient. We have to continue with all the measures that we've talked about and these are the things that governments need to communicate so it's important to have a national vaccine deployment plan and a strategy. One of the key elements of that is the communication to the public and the more open and transparent we can be the more likely it is that people will have the trust and the confidence and will not only want to take the vaccine but will also be patient and wait for their turn. Thank you. MR Just very practically on that, we've been working very, very closely; the Immunisation Programme with Kate and the Emergencies Programme on our side have joined together with UNICEF and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on a common service around risk communication and community engagement and specifically in the area of vaccination. 00:53:15 So if countries require more integrated systems and services and support there is the planning part but then there's the implementation so we take this deadly seriously. This is a science and this is a moment of translating our knowledge and communications into behaviour and action and demand and it doesn't happen by itself. It requires a dedicated and committed investment in social engagement so we stand ready as three organisations and others to support member states and people and nongovernmental organisations in the field in doing that and we are specifically investing in a strand of activity to support the implementation of the ACT Accelerator and the preparation of countries for successful vaccination campaigns. Kate O'Brien, Sylvie Briand and others are leading on that internally here at WHO. We have many excellent colleagues in UNICEF and Red Cross working with us on this portfolio. FC Thank you so much to all of you. I would like now to invite Sophie from SABC South Africa to ask the next question. Sophie, are you with us? 00:54:22 SO Yes, I'm here; Sophia Mkwena from the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The topic of vaccines on the African continent at times can be very controversial because there's a perception that the continent is being used for all the trials. There's a heated debate in South Africa currently. The Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court yesterday - a very religious person - when he was praying he prayed that there shouldn't be a vaccine that is being manufactured based on gammon [?]. Therefore that has generated a heated debate and it has instilled fear in some people, questioning, particularly after he also pointed out, why do you give people vaccine when they are not necessarily infected. I just want to check from Dr Ryan and Dr Tedros; this will demand a serious discussion and perhaps senior leaders to deal with the issue of perception. What is your advice to the African continent, particularly South Africa, at a time when the numbers are currently going up? We are in the second wave of the infection. FC Thank you, Sophie. Dr Ryan. 00:55:59 TAG Dr Tedros and Dr Aylward or Soumya may wish to comment but if we take a step back and look at it from the perspective of Africa, Africa has used vaccines as one of the single most effective public health interventions over the last 30 years on the continent. Africa has just recently eradicated the wild polio virus; it has put the wild polio virus to death on the continent using vaccination. The way in which African nations, even with weaker health systems, have prioritised immunisation of children; this has been the single biggest life-saving intervention on the continent. Therefore I think Africa is to be commended for the way in which immunisation has been used, has been trusted by populations and has been instrumental in reducing mortality rates. When a new vaccine is introduced there are always concerns and there are always questions and increasingly there are people who will distribute disinformation and misinformation and anti-vaccination information. The dialogue is needed at community level in order to address those concerns and we were just speaking about that, how we can deal with that. But certainly we need leaders and others to be very consistent in their messaging to people. We need people not to be raising fears but we need people at the same time not to be, in a sense, ignoring fears. You have to address people's fears with knowledge and with information and allow people to make up their own minds. 00:57:30 I have great faith in people in Africa in general. South Africa and other countries - and again in this African countries have actually shown the way in this response, in community engagement; they've led the way on community-led responses. African countries have - for example the laboratories in South Africa, in Senegal have been reference centres for diagnostics and even the development of diagnostic tests within Africa. Africa CDC and our African regional office have worked and the African Union have taken a big leadership role - the DG may wish to speak to that - on the continent. So Africa's doing well and Africans should be proud of what's being achieved. The next move of bringing in vaccines - and again South Africa, I believe, has participated in vaccine trials and has been at the leading edge of science and other types of trials for other diseases over many years. 00:58:23 It is really important though that countries that do support vaccine trials and countries that do participate in advancing science and innovation have fair and equitable access to the products that come from that process. That's another issue; the DG speaks to that process of equity but in this I think African nations and particularly South Africa are partners in science, they're partners in the innovation but communities have genuine questions that need to be addressed. Bruce may wish to speak or Soumya or others but again I think we need to be very rational in how we approach this discussion. Vaccination, immunisation are life-saving interventions, they have saved hundreds of millions of lives on this planet. We need to maintain our standards, we need to be sure that everything is safe and efficacious but we also need to trust in vaccination as a potentially game-breaking and game-changing intervention in this pandemic. Bruce. BA Thanks, Mike, and thanks, Sophie. These are such important questions and hardly unique to South Africa; you highlighted a couple of times specifically in the context of South Africa but in fact it's not just a South Africa issue - Mike alluded to this a little bit - but in every country there are people who raise questions. 00:59:42 But at the same time there's no question that vaccines are one of the most powerful public health tools that we have and certainly no population, no people would want to be disadvantaged in terms of being able to access them. That's what the entire COVAX facility, the ACT Accelerator is all about. At the same time we're got to make sure that when there are questions raised they get listened to and they get addressed and it's so important to create the fora for discussing these things, to listen to the concerns and then to use the science and the data available to be able to answer those. One of the striking things - Dr Tedros talked about in his opening remarks - was the speed with which science has created tools now and vaccines, it appears, to be able to tackle this disease. But at the same time as striking has been the amount of transparency and the amount of scrutiny that's been given to these products. It's extraordinary and I think one of the great advantages here - I'll come back to South Africa - is that in South Africa you have such experts in the area of vaccines and vaccination, really world leaders in fact, whose counsel we take. 01:00:56 So I think the country's in a very, very strong position, like all countries, to create those fora for the discussion, to listen to the issues and to address them but this has got to be anchored in what is now decades and decades of experience with vaccines, the power of vaccine and the countless millions of lives that have been saved as a result of them and that will be saved from COVID-19 as a result of these vaccines as they're proven and as they come eventually to market and to use. But again, as Dr Tedros said in his last intervention, a vaccine only saves lives when it's actually in someone, not in a vial so the big key now is making sure these products get out, get scaled to people as rapidly as possible. FC Dr Tedros, you have the floor. TAG Thank you. Thank you, Sophie, for those questions and I fully agree with what my colleagues said, especially with regard to some wrong perceptions of the vaccine, that's not just in Africa but it's all over the world. 01:02:01 Then when we come to the testing, especially the vaccines for COVID have been tested outside Africa more than in Africa. Having the testing, as long as the right protocols are followed, is very important and that's what has been done and the testing, I don't think, has been focused in Africa actually; it's more outside but the most important thing is whether it has followed the right protocols or not, whether it's done in Africa or other places but it's done in many places. Then when vaccines are introduced, whether they get emergency use least or finally pre-qualifications, the safety is central in addition to efficacy. So we follow that and other organisations, regulatory bodies also follow that and we will make sure that whatever vaccine is available the two important criteria are met; the safety first and then of course the efficacy. Then the issue you raised with religion; I remember when HIV reached its climax and some medicines started to appear and some people were saying, either you follow your religion or you follow the medicine, the two can't go together. 01:03:48 But religion and science can go together and I remember during that time religious leaders themselves came out and told the public that taking the medicine and doing their religious practices actually don't contradict one another. Many accepted that and many took medicines and they saved their lives. So for our religious leaders it's very important to see from the right authorities whether the right safety and efficacy measures; based on those the medicine or the vaccine is being provided or not; that's what they should focus on. Actually I would like to use this opportunity; it's the role of leaders - religious leaders, community leaders, political leaders - to be models and examples, to convince their followers to do the right thing. I hope our religious leaders will do their best to fight the pandemic, to fight the virus using the tools we have at hand and when vaccines are provided to also help their followers to benefit from the vaccines. I thank you. Thank you, Sophie. MR The DG mentioned something there and I think it was important. I think there are vaccine trials ongoing of different types in more than 50 countries around the world and only three are in Africa right now. The vast majority of trials are occurring in South America, in Central America, in North America, in Europe, in East Asia, in the Western Pacific, in Southern Africa and also, I think, in Kenya as well. 01:05:52 So the vaccine testing is distributed... In fact it's a wonderful example of the absolutely global collaboration. It's the most amazing thing to look at a world map and see the number of therapeutic trials, the number of vaccine trials that are going on and the way in which that data is being shared between the public and the private sector, the way that data is being shared between academics and WHO. So I think it's an actual sign of tremendous faith in the global system that such collaboration exists and Africa is part of that. FC Thank you so much. We will take a last question from China Daily. Chen from China Daily, you have the floor; last question. CH Hi, thank you very much for the opportunity. This year, 2020, looks quite bleak obviously. You mentioned about the light at the end of the tunnel. Could you give us a picture of what the coming year, 2021, will look like, how many miracles this vaccine will do? Are we still going to get our lives back or see new wave after wave of cases, lock-down after lock-down and travel restrictions still there? What's the picture in your mind? Thank you. 01:07:17 FC Thank you, Mr Chen. Dr Ryan. MR I suppose it's one of these moments where you say to everyone, let me give this to you straight. The situation globally is still very epidemiologically unstable. The vast majority of the world's population remains susceptible to this infection. Some countries are on a very negative trajectory in terms of the incidence and death rates for this disease and most countries even at low levels are still at risk of a disease resurgence. It's clear though and what we have learned and the hope is that many countries have demonstrated that this disease can be suppressed and controlled and that control can be maintained at low levels. But some countries face the current challenge of intense community transmission in the context of a seasonal period when it's very difficult to separate people adequately. For those countries who are not in that situation and are achieving lower levels of transmission avoiding intense community transmission must be an absolute objective in the coming weeks and months; avoiding going back into situations that require a lock-down because if that can be avoided and when we have now a vaccine coming online it can give great hope. 01:08:42 So our strategy is we must continue with a comprehensive approach to controlling this disease; control, containment, suppression and mitigation together while introducing vaccine in a stepwise way. Testing needs to continue to be expanded, we need more testing but strategic testing that tells us where the virus is. We still need more and better therapeutics. We tend to forget a little bit, we're all jumping on the vaccine story but actually dexamethasone and other drugs are saving lives so we need better and new therapeutics and that's another big piece of ACT at the moment. But vaccines will make a huge difference. I'll let Bruce speak to how that will and can happen. They're a massively valuable tool but vaccines by themselves will not equal zero COVID. They will have a major impact on morbidity and mortality, who gets sick and how sick people get and whether they die as we vaccinate those high-risk groups. 01:09:42 But the impact on transmission will not come until a much higher proportion of the population of a country is vaccinated and, as I said, as the DG says, we have to continue to do it all, we have to continue to do it smart but vaccine represent a major light at the end of the tunnel but we have much work to do to make that a reality. I'll hand over to Bruce or others who wish to comment and then the DG may wish to wrap up on that. BA Yes, thanks, Mike. I like the way Mike started when he said, I'll give it to you straight, because we'll go into the coming year with more hope definitely. We're in a completely different position in terms of the knowledge of this disease, the knowledge of the enemy and also the tools with which we'll fight the enemy; there's no question as well. But we also know that there're going to be challenges to scale up those tools, to get them out, to get them applied and to see them make the difference we want so you use that metaphor as well; the light at the end of the tunnel. 01:10:43 It's a long tunnel, to give it to you straight, it is a long tunnel and when we look at the epidemic curve - remember now, the world is used to looking at these curves and you'll remember, they don't go up like that and come straight down, do they? They go up and then they peak and then they come down slowly and they come down over time. Some of the tools will help us drive those curves down faster but it's not going to change, boom, like that overnight, which means again, to the point Mike, Maria and Dr Tedros make repeatedly, this should give us hope and with that hope we should have a new energy, a new stamina to apply the measures that can make a difference. There's no reason for us to see the same epidemic next year because we know how to beat this disease but we've got to apply the knowledge that we know in a way that we haven't to the degree possible in 2020. When you look at the places that have they had a very different epidemic. That's what we should be looking at. 01:11:43 FC Thank you. I think Dr Kelley would like to add something. Dr Kelley, you have the floor. EK Yes, just a quick thing to add to those two good comments. Next year IMF and World Bank are predicting that 3% of the world economy will contract and that we will have millions, 30 million people who will be put into poverty so on the eve of universal health coverage day next year for WHO certainly and for a lot of countries will be the year of trying harder. We'll have to continue on this push for the response, just as Mike was saying, just as Bruce was saying but we will also have to be continuing to work and expand this idea of what is essential; expanding access to healthcare to ensure that people have access for COVID but also to ensure that when this is all over we're able to say that we were able to treat those people that needed essential services as well. That, I think, will be something that will be coming through in the next year. FC Thank you, Dr Kelley. Dr Van Kerkhove would like to add something. MK I'm sorry. I know we shouldn't all answer the same questions but it's a really great question and I just want to talk at the individual level. We see countries right now that have brought COVID under control, that are opening up, that have stadiums full of people who are at sporting events and I've been getting a lot of questions lately at the end of the year thinking at the year round-up of, what is this going to look like. 01:13:09 You've heard us say before that it is completely in our hands. We have the tools now to bring this virus under control. Vaccine and vaccination is an additional tool that we will have but I think everyone needs to start to think about the patience that we will need in 2021 to get us through this, to see us through the end of this and what is our motivation to get there. I've seen a lot of really excellent interviews lately about people saying, I didn't think about this for me, I wasn't worried about me getting infected but I was worried about my most favourite person in the world, I was worried about the person that I love most in the world and I would do anything I could to keep them from getting infected. I think whatever it is that motivates you to protect yourself but even moreso to protect that person that you love most in the world, do that and do it now because that's what 2021 is going to look like. That is what is going to help us bring this under control and the vaccinations coming online is incredibly hopeful but we need the patience to get us to that endpoint and it will take some time. 01:14:17 So we don't have that exact end date but if you think of some of the countries that have actually brought it under control they're almost there. They have to keep it up, they have to remain vigilant and keep it down so that it doesn't resurge because no-one - you've heard Dr Tedros say this so often - no-one is safe until everyone is safe. But find your motivation that will help keep you and your loved ones safe because that is what 2021 means to me. FC Dr Tedros, you have the floor for your final comments. TAG Thank you. Thank you, everyone for joining and see you next week in our next presser. Bon week-end; have a nice weekend. FC Thank you, DG. Just to remind journalists, we will be sending the opening remarks of Dr... 01:15:07

Live with Dr Tedros from the UNGA Special Session on COVID-19

Ministério da Saúde apresenta balanço do combate à COVID-19

Siga o Ministério da Saúde http://www.twitter.com/minsaude http://www.facebook.com/minsaude http://www.instagram.com/minsaude https://www.linkedin.com/company/mini...

323ª reunião ordinária do CNS: (07/11/2019) ENSP/FIOCRUZ/ RJ - manhã

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Lideranças na área sanitária e econômica discutem como a reforma tributária pode corrigir desigualdades geradas pelo mercado de tabaco entre consumidores e produtores.

Ministério da Saúde atualiza informações sobre o combate à COVID-19 - 10/09/2020

Siga o Ministério da Saúde http://www.twitter.com/minsaude http://www.facebook.com/minsaude http://www.instagram.com/minsaude https://www.linkedin.com/company/mini...

Investing in health for all means investing in safety of each one of us!

While health has often been viewed as a cost, the COVID-19 pandemic shows how critical health investment is to national security. It has pushed health systems, both weak and strong, to the limits. No country has been left untouched. It's time for #HealthForAll!

Governo Federal garante recursos, equipamentos e insumos para o combate ao coronavírus

O Ministério da Saúde reafirma seu apoio irrestrito aos estados e municípios no auxílio financeiro, envio de equipamentos e medicamentos para o tratamento da COVID-19. Os recursos distribuídos são parte da ação estratégica do Governo Federal para o combate da pandemia no Brasil.

Respuesta al brote de COVID-19 en la Región de las Américas / Response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the Region of the Americas

La OPS ha emitido un llamado a los donantes y socios para ampliar la capacidad de los países de las Américas para responder a la COVID-19. La estrategia de respuesta descrita en este llamado tiene dos objetivos principales: frenar la transmisión del virus y mitigar el impacto en la salud del COVID-19 en la Región. Se necesitan inicialmente 94.8 millones de dólares para apoyar los esfuerzos críticos de respuesta en los países que más necesitan ayuda hasta septiembre de 2020. A medida que este brote evolucione, es probable que las necesidades aumenten y los requisitos financieros estimados se ajusten acordemente.

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La Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS) y la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) presentaron el informe conjunto Salud y economía: una convergencia necesaria para enfrentar la enfermedad por el coronavirus del 2019 (COVID-19) y retomar la senda hacia el desarrollo sostenible. El informe aborda la necesidad de tomar medidas de salud para aplanar la curva de COVID-19 y así reanudar la reactivación de la economía en los países de la región de las Américas.

Live: ECLAC and PAHO present joint report on health and the economy in the context of COVID-19

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) presented on Thursday, July 30, a joint report entitled Health and the Economy: A Convergence Needed to Address COVID-19 and Retake the Path of Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, in which they will address the need to take health-related measures to flatten the curve of COVID-19 and thereby resume the reactivation of the economy in countries in the Americas region.

Press briefing eclac and PAHO july 30, 2020

Salud y Economía. Una convergencia necesaria para enfrentar el COVID-19 y retomar la senda hacia el desarrollo sostenible en América Latina y el Caribe / Health and Economy. A necessary convergence to face COVID-19 and resume the path towards sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean

Varios países de América Latina son el epicentro de la pandemia de COVID-19. La región, la más desigual del mundo, es especialmente vulnerable a la COVID-19 por sus altos niveles de informalidad laboral, urbanización y débiles sistemas de salud y protección social.

(11/12 - Tarde) II Seminário da Planificação da Atenção à Saúde

Nos dias 10 e 11 de dezembro o Conass irá realizar, em Brasília, o II Seminário da Planificação da Atenção à Saúde: “Desafios do SUS e a Planificação da Atenção à Saúde”. O objetivo do evento é apresentar o resultado da ampliação da Planificação que, em 2019, foi estendida para outras vinte e seis regiões de saúde de vinte estados da federação, por meio do Proadi – Planifica SUS, desenvolvido em parceria com o Ministério da Saúde e o Instituto Israelita de Responsabilidade Social Hospital Albert Einstein.

(11/12 - Manhã) II Seminário da Planificação da Atenção à Saúde

Nos dias 10 e 11 de dezembro o Conass irá realizar, em Brasília, o II Seminário da Planificação da Atenção à Saúde: “Desafios do SUS e a Planificação da Atenção à Saúde”. O objetivo do evento é apresentar o resultado da ampliação da Planificação que, em 2019, foi estendida para outras vinte e seis regiões de saúde de vinte estados da federação, por meio do Proadi – Planifica SUS, desenvolvido em parceria com o Ministério da Saúde e o Instituto Israelita de Responsabilidade Social Hospital Albert Einstein.

II Seminário da Planificação da Atenção à Saúde

Nos dias 10 e 11 de dezembro o Conass irá realizar, em Brasília, o II Seminário da Planificação da Atenção à Saúde: “Desafios do SUS e a Planificação da Atenção à Saúde”. O objetivo do evento é apresentar o resultado da ampliação da Planificação que, em 2019, foi estendida para outras vinte e seis regiões de saúde de vinte estados da federação, por meio do Proadi – Planifica SUS, desenvolvido em parceria com o Ministério da Saúde e o Instituto Israelita de Responsabilidade Social Hospital Albert Einstein.