Thank you to our moderator, Dr Renee Ngamau,
The Honourable Dr Bikas Devkota,
My colleague Dr Seth Berkley,
Dr Ubah Farrah,
Dr George Mwinnya,
Dr Sheetal Sharma,
Dr Yassen Tcholakov,
Mr Andrei Cazacu,
And my colleague, Dr Kate O'Brien,
Excellencies, Honourable Ministers, Ambassadors, heads of delegation, dear colleagues and friends,
Thank you for joining us today.
In my opening remarks on Sunday, I spoke about the incredible power of vaccines, which have eradicated smallpox, pushed polio to the brink and made many other once-feared diseases easily preventable.
Of course when I spoke about vaccines, you remember I recognized the leadership of my friend and colleague, Dr Seth Berkley. Thank you for your leadership, Seth.
In the past two years we have witnessed the fastest and largest vaccination roll out in history, which has been critical to ending COVID-19 as a global health emergency.
We have also taken huge steps towards a new tuberculosis vaccine after decades of stalled progress.
And, on World Malaria Day, we celebrated the nearly 1.5 million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi who are protected by the new malaria vaccine as part of a pilot study led by WHO.
But while we recognise our collective achievements, we also need to remain clear-sighted about the consequences of COVID-19 and its impact on protecting children with life-saving immunizations.
We estimate that 67 million children missed out on essential vaccines during the pandemic, leaving them at risk of preventable disease.
The consequences of this are already being seen and felt across the world, with reports of dozens of outbreaks of measles, cholera and diphtheria.
The effects of missed vaccinations for other vaccine-preventable diseases, like HPV, will take years to be seen and will affect people in the prime of their lives.
This sharp decline in essential immunization coverage follows almost a decade of stalled progress, including millions of children who have never received a vaccination at all.
To galvanize global action, WHO and our partners in the Immunization Agenda 2030 launched ‘The Big Catch-up’ - a year-long effort to get immunization back on track.
We’re working with countries to support health workers and communities to catch-up the children who have missed out on life-saving vaccines.
We’re also supporting countries to strengthen primary health care systems so they can deliver essential immunizations, even in times of crisis.
As we will hear shortly, many countries have made remarkable progress, but more remains to be done.
Much of the success is due to the hard work of community health workers in getting vaccines to those who need them.
We can all learn from the experiences and best practices that will be shared today, and take with us a renewed commitment to ensure every child benefits from the life-saving power of vaccines.
I thank you.