Honourable Ministers, Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to all Member States, and thank you for joining us once again in this weekly session.
Globally, newly reported cases of COVID-19 have now declined for eight weeks in a row, and deaths have declined for seven weeks in a row.
This is good news, but new infections and deaths remain high globally.
Last week, more than 2.5 million cases and almost 64 thousand deaths were reported – that’s 250 cases and six deaths every minute.
The rate of decline in most regions has slowed, and every region has countries that are seeing a rapid increase in cases and deaths.
In Africa, the number of cases and deaths increased by almost 40% in the past week, and in some countries the number of deaths tripled or quadrupled.
These cases and deaths are largely avoidable.
While a handful of countries have high vaccination rates and are now seeing lower numbers of hospitalisations and deaths, other countries in Africa, the Americas and Asia are now facing steep epidemics.
There are several reasons for these increases, including the spread of variants of concern, more social mixing, the ineffective use of public health and social measures, and vaccine inequity.
As high vaccination rates allow high-income countries to ease public health and social measures, most low-income countries still do not have enough vaccine to cover their most vulnerable and at-risk populations, let alone the rest of their populations.
We are facing, as a result, a two-track pandemic, fuelled by inequity.
The pandemic has shown that relying on a few companies to supply global public goods is limiting, and risky. The fragile global supply system simply cannot satisfy global demand quickly enough.
To boost manufacturing, WHO has continued to call for the sharing of know-how, technology and licenses, and the waiving of intellectual property rights.
Just a few weeks ago, the World Health Assembly adopted a landmark resolution on strengthening local production of medicines and other health technologies to improve access.
Over 100 countries co-sponsored the resolution, clearly signalling the commitment of you, our Member States, to changing the paradigm and distributing production capacity more equitably.
The Secretariat is fully committed to supporting Member States in implementing the resolution. I want to stress the urgent need for swift and effective action.
On Monday, we announced that we are in discussions with a consortium of companies and institutions to establish a technology transfer hub in South Africa.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention will provide guidance through the Partnership for African Vaccines Manufacturing.
WHO is facilitating this effort by establishing the criteria for the technology transfer, assessing the applications, developing standards and providing ongoing support and training.
We are now in negotiations with several companies that have indicated interest in providing their mRNA technology to the hub.
In the coming weeks, we will continue to assess proposals for other tech-transfer hubs for mRNA and other technology platforms.
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Today, we will begin with an update on variants of concern from COVID-19 Technical Lead Dr Maria Van Kerkhove.
Next will be an update on the Emergency Medical Team initiative from Dr Nedret Emiroglu and Flavio Salio.
Their presentation explains how the EMT mechanism has been adapted to COVID-19 and the types of support they are providing.
These include the provision of additional facilities and staff for direct clinical care, training, and support in surge planning.
Emergency Medical Teams are a critical component of the global health emergency workforce, and play a vital role in building national preparedness and response capacities, and for providing surge capacity to respond to outbreaks and other emergencies globally.
This will be followed by a short briefing on the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator by Dr Bruce Aylward.
Our special guest, Robert Matiru from UNITAID, will then give a progress report on the COVID-19 Oxygen Emergency Taskforce.
Countries in Africa, Latin America, and South-East Asia are currently experiencing severe medical oxygen shortages, affecting around one million critically-ill patients.
In partnership with the ACT Accelerator, the taskforce is supporting these countries in accessing crucial supplies.
Finally, the Member State Working Group on Sustainable Financing has been meeting this week, and I would like to thank all Member States for the detailed and constructive discussions you are having about WHO’s financing model.
My colleagues and I are fully committed to playing our part as you move forward with your considerations in this vital area.
As always, we are grateful for your engagement with today’s presentations, and we look forward to your questions and comments.
I thank you.