Good afternoon, welcome to Geneva, and thank you all for the opportunity of spending some time with you today to talk about global health and WHO’s role.
As you may know, I visited Washington D.C. in April, where I had the opportunity to meet with Secretary Becerra, Secretary Yellen and officials from CDC and NIH, as well as Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Lindsey Graham and several others.
WHO has had a long and fruitful relationship with the United States.
Indeed, it was in 1945, during the Conference to establish the United Nations in San Francisco, that the idea of an international health organization was first proposed.
And at the International Health Conference in New York City the following year, the Constitution of the World Health Organization was adopted by 51 Members of the UN, including the United States.
So although we live in Switzerland now, you could say that WHO was born in the USA.
For the past 75 years, the United States has continued to be a strong and generous partner for WHO, and for global health.
The US played a pivotal role in eradicating smallpox – which remains one of the greatest achievements in human history. The WHO smallpox eradication campaign was led by an American, D.A. Henderson, who was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.
The US has continued to be a leader in global health, through PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, as well as through its support for the fight against malaria, tuberculosis, polio and many other diseases.
As Minister of Health in Ethiopia, I saw first-hand the difference that US support made.
The US has also been a committed and generous supporter of WHO’s work to respond to health emergencies, including the war in Ukraine.
With support from the United States, WHO is working with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health to keep the country’s health system running, and we’re working with neighbouring countries to support access to care for refugees.
Prior to the conflict, WHO was working with the Ministry of Health to prepare for the worst-case scenario, pre-positioning supplies in hospitals.
Immediately after the Russian Federation’s invasion, we sent in medical supplies, trauma kits and more from our logistics hub in Dubai, and were the first humanitarian organization to reach Kyiv with supplies.
WHO and our partners have so far delivered more than 500 metric tonnes of medical supplies to the hardest hit areas in Ukraine, and we are preparing to deliver more.
We have delivered enough supplies for almost 16 thousand surgeries and to provide care for 650 thousand people, plus diesel generators for hospitals and clinics, 20 ambulances, and tests and treatments for COVID-19.
In accordance with our mandate from the World Health Assembly, we also monitor attacks on health care.
Since the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine began almost 100 days ago, WHO has verified 263 incidents of attacks on health care, with 156 people killed and 161 injured, including health workers and patients.
Attacks on health care are a violation of international humanitarian law, and we have been clear in calling on the Russian Federation to stop the war.
There can be no health without peace.
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The United States has also been a strong supporter of the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the largest financial donor to the ACT Accelerator, and the largest donor of vaccines to COVAX.
I am painfully aware that the pandemic has taken a heavy toll in the US, with more than 1 million deaths.
I’m pleased that two-thirds of the US population is now vaccinated, and reported cases and deaths are at much lower levels, although I’m sure you would agree with me that more than 1500 deaths a week is 1500 deaths too many.
I also note that cases are rising in the US, as they are in many other countries.
Which highlights an inconvenient truth: the pandemic is not over.
Increasing transmission, plus decreasing testing and sequencing, plus 1 billion people still unvaccinated, equals a dangerous situation.
There remains a real and present danger of a new and more virulent variant emerging that evades our vaccines.
We lower our guard at our peril.
WHO’s primary focus now is supporting countries with the lowest vaccination rates to increase those rates as fast as possible, with a focus on health workers, older people and other at-risk groups.
But even as we respond to the pandemic, we must learn the lessons it is teaching us, because history teaches us that it will not be the last one.
We must therefore put in place the measures to prevent and prepare for future pandemics, and mitigate their impact.
There have been multiple independent reviews of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 300 recommendations on how to make the world safer.
WHO has synthesised these recommendations into a proposal for a stronger global architecture for health emergency preparedness and response, which we presented to the World Health Assembly last week.
We have developed a white paper that explains this proposal in detail, which we would be very happy to share with you.
But in brief, it includes 10 key recommendations for stronger governance, stronger systems and tools, stronger financing, and a stronger WHO at the centre of the global health architecture.
Key to strengthening WHO, and making it more efficient, is making our funding more sustainable and predictable.
As you may be aware, the World Health Assembly last week passed a landmark resolution to increase assessed contributions to a target of 50% of our budget by the end of the decade, from just 16% now.
This gradual shift will go hand-in-hand with further strengthening WHO budgetary, programmatic and financing governance, which will be led by our Member States.
This shift to better quality funding will have major benefits for WHO’s ability to deliver long-term programming on US priorities in countries, for example by attracting and retaining top global health experts to deliver that programming in a sustained way.
Overarching all these recommendations is the proposal for a new international instrument, to provide the framework for closer cooperation and coordination between countries in the face of global threats.
This was a key recommendation of all the independent reviews. At a Special Session of the World Health Assembly last year, Member States including the United States decided to embark on the process of negotiating a new international accord. That process has now begun.
An international instrument will be an important complement to the International Health Regulations, which govern the global response to health emergencies.
I’m aware that there has been some concern expressed over whether such an agreement is an infringement of national sovereignty.
The answer is: no.
It’s important to note that the negotiating process is a discussion among Member States – Member States themselves, including the US, will decide what the instrument will look like, not the WHO Secretariat.
And it will be up to the United States as to whether you decide to become a signatory to the instrument.
No other country or international organization can bind any Member State to any international agreement but that Member State itself.
Of course, I very much hope that the United States will engage actively in the negotiating process, and that you will adopt the final product.
As you are well aware, more than 50 years ago the United States played a key role in developing the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; a treaty which remains all too relevant today.
If the nations of the world can come together to agree a common approach to the human-made threat of nuclear weapons, then it is common sense for countries to now agree on a common approach, with common rules for a common response, to threats arising from our relationship with nature—threats no human can entirely control.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the nations of the world came together to establish the United Nations and the World Health Organization, based on the realization that the only way to avoid international conflict is international cooperation.
Seventy-five years later, we are starting to emerge from the most severe global crisis since the Second World War. We need the same realization now that the only way to avoid another global crisis is global cooperation.
This is not even enlightened self-interest; it’s garden variety self-interest to protect yourself by protecting others.
The pandemic is a vivid reminder that we are one species, sharing one planet.
Bugs don’t respect borders; pathogens don’t need passports; and viruses don’t need visas.
Earlier, I referred to D.A. Henderson, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work in eradicating smallpox.
Let me finish with a quote from another recipient of the Medal of Freedom, Joshua Lederberg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1958 for his work on bacteria.
Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1988 as the HIV epidemic was erupting globally, Lederberg said:
“As one species, we share a common vulnerability to these scourges. No matter how selfish our motives, we can no longer be indifferent to the suffering of others. The microbe that felled one child in a distant continent yesterday can reach yours today and seed a global pandemic tomorrow.”
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lederberg’s words have a devastating ring of truth.
My hope, as Director-General of your World Health Organization, is that we will learn the lessons this pandemic is teaching us, and put in place the measures to keep our children and our children’s children safe.
Thank you once again for this opportunity, and I look forward to your questions and our discussion.