Honourable Ministers, Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Thank you for joining us for today’s briefing. Today we will be hearing from Ministers and senior experts from our six WHO regions: Argentina, Malaysia, Malta, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates.
First, I'll begin with a brief update before our Ministers.
While much attention has been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, it is not the only health emergency to which WHO is responding.
We have now passed 37 days without a new case of Ebola in eastern DRC, and there are 21 days until the government can declare the outbreak is over.
But as you know, on Monday the Government reported a new outbreak near the city of Mbandaka in Équateur province. This is the other side of DRC.
So far, there are 8 cases. Four of those have died and the other 4 are receiving care.
Almost 50 responders from WHO and partners have already arrived in Mbandaka, plus 3600 doses of Ebola vaccine and 2000 cartridges for lab testing.
WHO will continue supporting DRC in tackling Ebola, as well as responding to COVID-19 and the world’s largest measles outbreak.
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Coming back to COVID-19: More than 6 million cases have been reported to WHO, with more than 375 000 deaths.
More than 100 000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported to WHO nearly each day this past week.
The Americas continues to account for the most cases. For several weeks, the number of cases reported from the Americas has been more than the rest of the world put together.
In Central and South America, many countries are witnessing accelerating epidemics.
And although the numbers are much smaller, there are increasing numbers of cases in the Eastern Mediterranean, South-East Asia and Africa.
The number of cases in Europe continues to decline. Yesterday Europe reported the fewest cases since the 18th of March.
But as I have said many times, without proper safeguards and monitoring, there is the real threat of resurgence.
WHO is paying particular attention to vulnerable populations and fragile and conflict-affected countries.
We've now seen the first COVID-19 death among the Rohingya refugees.
And we are also working hard in Yemen, a country that has been suffering for so many years.
Last week alone, WHO and WFP airlifted over 34 000 kilograms of medicines and medical supplies, including over 6.5 tons of COVID-19 PPE and laboratory diagnostics.
This week we are preparing another round of over 7 tons of PPE and 18 tons of medicines.
We will continue to do everything we can to serve the people of Yemen, even as COVID-19 rages. And I would like to appreciate Saudi Arabia for hosting the pledging conference to support the response in Yemen.
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As I did last week, I’d like to highlight several new pieces of guidance that WHO has produced in the past week, and which we urge countries to use:
- a new case report form for suspected cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children;
- operational guidance on maintaining essential health services;
- guidance on controlling the spread of COVID-19 at ground crossings;
- ethical considerations for the use of digital technologies in tracking COVID-19; and
- planning recommendations for mass gatherings.
This updated guidance is designed to help organizations determine how and when mass gatherings can safely resume.
We have updated our risk assessment tool so that organizations can score each risk factor and control measure, which results in an overall risk score.
Organizations can then make the decision on how best to proceed.
Meanwhile, WHO continues to train millions of health workers all over the world to apply our guidance.
Our OpenWHO.org online learning platform has now registered 3 million enrolments for our courses on COVID-19. And I hope you will encourage your health workers to enroll.
In the past week, we launched COVID-19 courses in Amharic, Arabic, French, Hausa, Macedonian, Odia, Spanish and Vietnamese.
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As you know, last week the Executive Group of the Solidarity Trial decided to implement a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm of the trial, because of concerns raised about the safety of the drug.
This decision was taken as a precaution while the safety data were reviewed.
The Data Safety and Monitoring Committee of the Solidarity Trial has been reviewing the data since the pause last week.
On the basis of the available mortality data, the members of the committee recommended that there are no reasons to modify the trial protocol.
The Executive Group received this recommendation and endorsed the continuation of all arms of the Solidarity Trial, including hydroxychloroquine.
The Executive Group will communicate with the principal investigators in the trial about resuming the hydroxychloroquine arm of the trial.
The Data Safety and Monitoring Committee will continue to closely monitor the safety of all therapeutics being tested in the Solidarity Trial.
So far, more than 3500 patients have been recruited in 35 countries.
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As you can see, WHO is active on many fronts, and we will continue to work day and night to serve the world with science, solutions and solidarity.
Thank you all for your support and commitment. We look forward to hearing from you.
I would like to thank once again Ministers of Argentina, Malaysia, Malta, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates for agreeing to present their experience today.
I thank you.