Excellencies, dear colleagues and
friends,
Good morning, good afternoon and
good evening, and thank you all for joining us for today’s briefing on this
very exciting initiative.
As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic
is teaching us many lessons.
One of them is that there is an
urgent need for a globally agreed system for sharing pathogen materials and
clinical samples, to facilitate the rapid development of medical
countermeasures as global public goods.
Whether it is for SARS-CoV-2 and
its variants, or for any future pathogen with epidemic or pandemic potential,
the rapid sharing of biological material is an essential starting point for an
effective response.
But at the moment, weak surveillance
networks around the world pose a real threat to the timely detection and
characterization of a novel pathogen, and to sharing with other countries.
At the World Health Assembly in
November I announced the creation of a new repository for specimens at a secure
facility in Switzerland, which we are calling the BioHub.
This is in line with WHO’s mandate
to develop mechanisms to facilitate the equitable allocation of life-saving
interventions, based on public health needs.
The WHO BioHub System would offer
a trusted, transparent mechanism that would facilitate the processing,
characterization, amplification and sharing of samples with Member States and
partners.
I stress that this is a voluntary
mechanism. It does not replace or compete with existing systems, but offers an
additional opportunity to move faster than viruses and give us the safety net
that we may be lacking.
We won’t build this system
overnight. It will take time, which is why we are proposing a step-wise
approach.
For the first phase, we will use
the current response to COVID-19 as an opportunity to test our assumptions and
operational pathways.
One quick win would be the rapid
sharing of SARS-CoV-2 and its emerging variants.
In the longer term, this will pave
the way towards a system that will promote the rapid and timely sharing of
biological materials with epidemic or pandemic potential, facilitate rapid
access to pathogens, and promote equitable access to countermeasures.
Since I announced this project at
the World Health Assembly in November, several Member States have made
commitments and we have taken first steps towards operationalization.
We are very grateful to those
Member States that have supported this initiative and who continue to work with
us on this proof of concept.
And we continue to encourage all
Member States to share data and samples of new variants in a timely way.
We look forward to briefing you
today on these first steps and to your feedback on how best to move forward, as
we work together for a healthier, safer, fairer future.
And I would like to use this
opportunity to thank Mike Ryan and his team, Sylvie Briand and others.
I thank you.