Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, and I thank all Member States for joining us today.
The COVID-19 pandemic was the most severe health emergency in a century.
It left an estimated 20 million people dead, wiped at least US$10 trillion dollars from the global economy, and caused enormous social and political upheaval.
And we cannot talk about COVID-19 in the past tense. Although the crisis has passed, the virus remains.
It continues to evolve, it continues to kill, and millions of people continue to live with post COVID-19 condition, or long-COVID.
The pandemic taught the world many painful lessons, and over the past five years, WHO, our partners and many countries have put in place many initiatives in response to those lessons.
For example, together with the World Bank we established the Pandemic Fund;
We established the WHO Hub for Epidemic and Pandemic Intelligence in Germany; the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme in South Africa; the Global Biomanufacturing Training Hub in the Republic of Korea; the BioHub here in Switzerland; the interim Medical Countermeasures Network; the Global Health Emergency Corps; and more.
As you know, at the World Health Assembly last year, Member States adopted a package of amendments to the International Health Regulations;
And last month, after three-and-a-half years of intense negotiations, you adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement – a landmark instrument of international law to make the world safer from pandemics.
Over the past five years, we have learned a lot about COVID-19, but there is one crucial question that we have not yet answered: how it started.
Understanding how any outbreak, epidemic or pandemic starts is essential for preventing future outbreaks.
It’s also a moral imperative for the sake of those who lose their lives to them.
At a Special Session of the World Health Assembly in late 2020, Member States mandated WHO with studying the origins of COVID-19, in resolution 73.1.
As you know, a joint mission between international and Chinese experts travelled to China in January and February 2021 and published its report in March of that year.
In July 2021, I launched the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, or SAGO – an international, multidisciplinary panel of 27 independent experts.
SAGO was established with two core mandates: first, to develop a framework for the types of studies that should be performed to understand the source of emerging and reemerging pathogens with epidemic or pandemic potential.
SAGO completed this first part of its work last year.
The second part of its mandate was to take forward the study of the origins of COVID-19, which it has been doing in parallel with the first part of its mandate over the past four years.
Today, WHO is publishing SAGO’s report, and in a few moments, SAGO’s Chair, Dr Marietjie Venter, will present the findings.
I thank Dr Venter for her leadership of SAGO over the past four years.
We recognize that this has been a very difficult task, on a very complex and often contentious issue.
We know that SAGO’s members have not agreed on every point. That is to be expected.
Earlier this week, one member of SAGO resigned, and three other members asked for their names to be removed from the report.
I thank each of the 27 members of SAGO for dedicating their time and expertise to this very important scientific undertaking.
SAGO has advanced our understanding of the origins of COVID-19, but much of the information needed to evaluate fully all hypotheses has not been provided.
WHO recognizes that China has shared some of this information, but not everything that we have requested.
This includes hundreds of genetic sequences from individuals with COVID-19 early in the pandemic, more detailed information on animals sold at markets in Wuhan, and information on work done and biosafety conditions at laboratories in Wuhan.
WHO is also aware of intelligence reports produced by other governments around the world on the origins of COVID-19.
Some of these reports are available publicly, and SAGO has considered the information in those reports.
We have requested access to those reports that are not publicly available, but to date neither WHO nor SAGO has had access to these reports, or their underlying data.
As things stand, all hypotheses must remain on the table, including zoonotic spillover and lab leak.
We continue to appeal to China and any other country that has information about the origins of COVID-19 to share that information openly, in the interests of protecting the world from future pandemics.
WHO and SAGO remain ready to evaluate any further information that comes to light, and we remain committed to continuing and concluding this vital scientific undertaking.
Mike, back to you.