Good afternoon once again, and thank you for joining us.
First, the latest numbers of the outbreak.
As of 6am Geneva time today, there were 28,060 confirmed cases in China, and 564 deaths.
Outside China, there are 225 cases in 24 countries, with 1 death.
Yesterday, as you know, we launched our Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan, asking for $675 million to invest in stopping this outbreak.
As I mentioned, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has already made a generous contribution, Japan has also made a contribution of $10 million today, and there are a lot of other signals of support. We expect more announcements in the coming days.
We welcome support from all donors big and small, because every dollar counts.
We are also mobilizing the full power of the UN system. After our press conference yesterday I briefed the Secretary-General and other UN leaders, and today we had a call with more than 200 UN country representatives. This follows yesterday’s call with WHO country representatives.
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It’s hard to believe that just two months ago, this virus was unknown to us.
We have already learned so much about it. We know its DNA. We know it can be transmitted from person to person. We know that those most at risk are older people and those with underlying health conditions.
Having the genetic sequence of the virus has enabled the rapid development of tests, and as I mentioned yesterday, we have shipped 250,000 tests to more than 70 laboratories around the world, and we’re training lab workers to use them.
But there is still a lot we don’t know.
We don’t know the source of the outbreak, we don’t know what its natural reservoir is and we don’t properly understand its transmissibility or severity.
To defeat this outbreak, we need answers to all those questions.
And there are tools we don’t have. We have no vaccine to prevent infections, and no therapeutics to treat them.
To put it bluntly: we’re shadow-boxing. We need to bring this virus out into the light so we can attack it properly.
That’s why on February 11 and 12 we are convening a global research and innovation forum to identify research priorities and coordinate the international research effort – to find therapeutics and vaccines.
This will be a meeting of scientists from all over the world, including China, both in person and virtually.
The aim is to fast-track the development of effective diagnostic tests, vaccines and medicines.
One of the key challenges is coordinating research funders to support key priorities.
A lot of donors want to help, but we need to direct them to support agreed priorities, rather than going off in different directions.
I have said we need to be led be facts not fear, and science not rumours.
That’s exactly what we’re doing. We are letting science lead.
But this is not something we have only just thought of. This is something WHO has been working on for years.
Following the West African Ebola outbreak, we developed the WHO R&D Blueprint – a global strategy for developing drugs and vaccines before epidemics, and accelerating research and development activities during epidemics. It speeds up the availability of the medicines and technologies that save lives.
We’ve seen that with the rapid development of an Ebola vaccine.
But vaccines and therapeutics are not silver bullets, and they will take time to develop. In the meantime, there are simple things everyone can do: wash your hands regularly and cover your nose and your mouth with your elbow when you cough or sneeze. That’s personal hygiene.
Keeping the world safe is in our DNA. If countries invest now in prevention and research, we can avoid more cases and more costs down the line.
Thank you.