WHO press conference on coronavirus disease (COVID-19) - 26 April 2021
00:00:30
CL Hello
and good day to wherever you are listening to us today. It's Monday 26th
April 2021. My name is Christian Lindmeier and I'm welcoming you to today's
global COVID-19 press conference with a special focus on the impact of COVID-19
on immunisation as we mark World Immunization Week, which started on Saturday
24th April.
The press conference will include two special
guests today and those are Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Director, and Dr Seth
Berkley, CEO of GAVI, the vaccine alliance. Welcome. Simultaneous
interpretation is provided in the six official languages, Arabic, Chinese,
French, English, Spanish and Russian, plus Portuguese and Hindi.
Present in the room are Dr Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead on
COVID-19, Dr Kate O'Brien, Director for Immunisation, Vaccines and Biologicals,
and Dr Ann Lindstrom, the Head of the Immunisation Programme of WHO. We have
other colleagues online if necessary. With this let me hand over immediately to
Dr Tedros for the opening remarks. The floor is yours.
TAG Thank
you. Thank you, Christian. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
Globally the COVID-19 pandemic continues to intensify. Cases have now increased
for the ninth straight week and deaths have increased for the sixth straight
week.
00:02:17
To put it in perspective, there were almost as
many cases globally last week as in the first five months of the pandemic. It's
pleasing to see small declines in cases and deaths in several regions but many
countries are still experiencing intense transmission and the situation in
India is beyond heartbreaking.
WHO is doing everything we can; providing
critical equipment and supplies including thousands of oxygen concentrators,
prefabricated mobile field hospitals and laboratory supplies. As I mentioned on
Friday, WHO has redeployed more than 2,600 staff to support the response on the
ground, providing support for surveillance, technical advice and vaccination
efforts.
Never before has the value of vaccination been
so apparent. Today marks the start of World Immunization Week at a time when
the world's attention is focused on vaccines as never before. With the theme,
vaccines bring us closer, World Immunization Week shows how vaccination
connects us to the people, goals and moments that matter most, helping improve
the health of everyone everywhere throughout life.
00:03:56
Vaccines are one of the most powerful and
transformative inventions in history. Thanks to vaccines smallpox is now in the
history books, polio has been pushed to the brink of eradication and
once-feared diseases like diphtheria, tetanus and meningitis are now easily
prevented.
New vaccines continue to push back the frontiers
of disease. In the past 15 years new vaccines have been approved to prevent
cervical cancer, malaria and Ebola. Now safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines
have been developed in record time, bringing us closer to ending the pandemic.
On Wednesday the WHO Foundation is launching a
new global fund-raising campaign called Go GiveOne, to give everyone a chance
to play their part in helping to vaccinate the world. Go GiveOne is aiming to
engage 15 million people to contribute and is open to everyone; individuals and
organisations of all sizes.
The money raised will go to COVAX to buy
vaccines for the world, starting with those who need them the most. More
information will follow this week. But even as COVID-19 vaccines give us hope
of light at the end of the tunnel the pandemic has caused several disruptions
to immunisation services around the world.
00:05:37
New WHO data shows that as a result of COVID-19
60 immunisation campaigns are currently suspended in 50 countries. That means
about 228 million children are vulnerable right now to deadly
vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, yellow fever and polio.
Measles campaigns are the most affected,
accounting for 23 of the postponed campaigns. Many measles campaigns have now
been delayed for more than a year. In addition to targeted campaigns to prevent
or respond to outbreaks routine childhood immunisation services also continue
to be disrupted by COVID-19.
The latest WHO pulse survey shows that routine
immunisation services were disrupted in more than a third of countries in the
first quarter of 2021. While this represents a significant improvement over
last year it remains a serious concern. Gaps in vaccination coverage are
already having grave real-world consequences.
00:06:58
Serious measles outbreaks have occurred in
several countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and
Yemen. The risk of measles outbreaks is mounting elsewhere as more and more
children miss out on the vaccines they so urgently need.
So we must turn the tide quickly and rebound
from these disruptions. WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and other partners are working with
countries to ensure that immunisation services are restored quickly and safely
but we must not forget that even before the COVID-19 pandemic nearly 20 million
children missed out on life-saving vaccines each year.
So we must not only get immunisation back on
track but do better than before. Today we're launching a bold new plan to do
just that. The Immunization Agenda 2030 is an ambitious new global strategy to
maximise the life-saving impact of vaccines over the next decade.
Our aim is to maintain hard-won gains in
immunisation, avoid back-sliding and achieve even more by leaving no-one behind
in any situation or at any stage of life. If fully implemented the Immunization
Agenda 2030 could avert over 50 million deaths over the next decade, 75% of
them in low and middle-income countries.
00:08:45
To achieve these goals all of us must step up
and take action. First we call on world leaders and the global health and
development community to make bold new commitments to advance this strategy.
Second we call on all countries to develop and
implement national plans that align with the immunisation agenda 2030 and
increase investments to make immunisation accessible to all.
Third we all on donors and governments to
increase investments in vaccine research, development and delivery, focused on
the needs of underserved populations. Fourth, we call on the vaccine industry
and scientists to continue to accelerate research and development, ensure a
continuous supply of affordable vaccines to meet global needs and apply lessons
from COVID-19 to other diseases.
Together we can make up lost ground in
immunisation, support the global recovery from COVID-19 and make sure no-one
misses out on the life-saving power of vaccines. The Immunization Agenda 2030
has been developed by WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and many other partners and it's now my
honour to introduce my sister, Henrietta Fore, the Executive Director of UNICEF.
Henrietta, thank you as always for your leadership and you have the floor.
00:10:30
HF Thank
you very much, Tedros. It's also very nice to see Dr Berkley here this morning
for us. This week is indeed World Immunization Week but effectively this year
has become World Immunization Year because after a year of lock-downs and empty
classrooms, missed vaccinations and virtual birthday parties, cancelled family
dinners, people all over the world are now anticipating vaccines within their
community.
Those of us in the global development understand
how much and how important vaccines are but this year every single person on
the planet knows it and we all want reunions with our families. This year more
than any other has reminded us that vaccines bring us together but while
COVID-19 vaccines represent our best hope of returning to normal lives we need
to remind ourselves that millions of children all over the world have no access
to vaccines for any of the preventable diseases whatsoever. This is not a
normal that we should return to.
00:11:51
As Tedros has mentioned, even before the
pandemic we were losing ground in the fight against preventable child illness.
20 million children were already missing out on critical vaccinations and I
will place measles and polio at the top of my list.
Now a year into the COVID-19 pandemic we are
still making up lost ground. While there has been progress from the peak of the
global lock-downs routine immunisation services remained disrupted in 37% of
responding countries in the first quarter of 2021.
Disruptions as a result of COVID-19 have made
this problem even worse. In 2020 UNICEF, the largest global procurer and
supplier of vaccines, delivered 2.01 billion vaccine doses, down from 2.29
billion doses the previous year. Considering the unprecedented global...
CL Sorry
for losing the contact right now. The image is frozen. We'll try for a second
to reconnect. If we don't manage I would possibly ask to move to the next
guest.
TAG Maybe
a minute or two.
CL No
connection. Move on. Lost the line. Unfortunately we lost the line to Henrietta
Fore.
00:14:05
TAG So
I think we can move. Still no? Okay. Henrietta, I think you're back.
HF My
apologies.
TAG Sorry,
it just dropped. Thank you.
HF I
believe that you lost me when I was talking about our vaccine dose
procurements. Would that sound right?
CL Yes,
indeed.
HF All
right. In 2020 UNICEF was the largest global procurer and supplier of vaccines.
We delivered 2.01 billion vaccine doses, down from 2.29 billion doses the
previous year. Considering the unprecedented global lock-downs and their impact
on supply delivery this was a remarkable achievement.
UNICEF also managed to deliver 912.7 million
syringes for immunisation and ten million safety boxes to 83 countries and we
installed 18,340 cold fridges in health facilities in 25 countries, another
remarkable achievement.
00:15:26
Over the past few months we have repeatedly
expressed our deep concern with the inequitable distribution of COVID-19
vaccines. WHO and Dr Tedros have said last week that of the over 890 million
COVID-19 vaccine doses that have been administered globally more than 81% have
been given in high and upper-middle-income countries.
This is not only unfair but it is also unwise
because a threat anywhere is a threat everywhere, especially with a worrying
rise in variants. But for the people living in the countries where 20 million
children are already missing out on life-saving vaccines it is also
unsurprising.
Vaccines have always been inequitably
distributed but now is the time to change this. We can use this unique moment
in time to spur long-term momentum towards finally achieving universal access
to routine immunisations and broader primary healthcare.
That is why I am so pleased to join with my
fellow panellist in launching Immunization Agenda 2030, a comprehensive plan to
maximise the impact of vaccination over the next decade. IA2030 is an ambitious
global strategy to maximise the impact of vaccines.
00:17:03
We are aiming to save an estimated 50 million
lives, to halve the number of children receiving zero vaccine doses and to
achieve 90% coverage for key vaccines over the next decade. As a part of our
engagement in IA2030 and World Immunization Week UNICEF is calling on
governments to prioritise strengthening of health systems in the poorest
countries.
We need to increase global domestic investment
to continue delivering vaccinations and other critical services for the most
vulnerable children and to guarantee universal, accessible and quality care for
the long run.
We call on government to protect aid budgets and
to fulfil existing commitments which support life-saving child health services
including routine immunisation, nutrition and maternal health.
Donors should also increase investments in
vaccine research and innovation, development and delivery, focusing on the
needs of the underserved. The pharmaceutical industry and scientists working
with governments and funders should continue to accelerate vaccine research and
development, ensure a continuous supply of affordable vaccines to meet the
global needs and apply the lessons from COVID-19 to other diseases.
00:18:37
Finally we need to take steps to make sure that
parents and caregivers trust health workers and heed their advice on
vaccinating their children against preventable diseases. Later this week UNICEF
will be joining the Yale Institute for Global Health and Public Goods Projects
to announce a new initiative to equip country teams with tools to counter
misinformation and mistrust all related to vaccines. We will be sure to make
these details available soon.
The stage is set for 2021 to be a pivotal year
for immunisation. Through COVAX and other global efforts to make the COVID-19
vaccines available for all we are embarking on an unprecedented global
immunisation campaign but this campaign cannot come at the cost of childhood
vaccinations.
We cannot trade one global health crisis for
another. In a year when vaccines are at the forefront of everyone's minds we
must sustain this energy to accelerate efforts on all three fronts; providing
equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, catching up on missed vaccinations due
to the pandemic lock-down, and critically extending immunisation efforts to all
children currently missing out on vaccines entirely.
00:20:08
We have no time to waste. Lost ground means lost
lives. Join our calls. Thank you very much, Dr Tedros.
TAG Thank
you. Thank you, Henrietta. For more than 20 years GAVI has played a vital role
in realising the power of vaccines for the world's most vulnerable communities.
It's now my pleasure to welcome GAVI's Chief Executive Officer, my brother,
Seth Berkley. Seth, thank you so much as always for your partnership and
leadership. You have the floor.
SB Thank
you, Tedros and Henrietta. As we mark World Immunization Week I'm very proud to
stand together with our long-standing alliance partners, WHO and UNICEF, to
launch Immunization Agenda 2030.
Immunisation is the most widely distributed
health intervention and in the last 21 years the alliance has worked together
to successfully increase coverage and introduce more than 500 new vaccines,
which has led to reduced vaccine-preventable diseases by 70%.
00:21:24
But despite these successes you've heard about
the 20 million children that are under-immunised every year. I would like to
talk about a subset of these, the nearly ten million children in lower-income
countries who don't receive a single shot, leaving them vulnerable to some of
the world's most deadly diseases.
Of course you've already heard that due to the pandemic
more children across the world are likely to miss out on basic vaccines,
threatening to unravel the two decades of progress. So what we need to support
the recovery from COVID-19 and to fight a future pandemic is to make sure that
we prioritise routine immunisation.
We must specifically focus on improving the
situation for children and their families who do not receive any routine
vaccines, so-called zero-dose children. These children usually live in
communities that suffer not just from high child mortality but also deep-rooted
social issues and gender disparities including high maternal death.
Zero-dose children are also less likely to live
in a household with access to safe water and sanitation. That is why we need a
global movement to reach these missed communities. We need to work together
across development agencies, governments and civil society.
00:22:53
If we can reach them with immunisation we can
also bring the other services every child needs to live a healthy, successful
life from education to clean water and sanitation.
Reaching zero-dose children could also improve
global health security. This contact with the health systems allows health
professionals to systematically be on the look-out for new outbreaks and new
emerging diseases.
This early-warning system is one of our first
line of defence against the next pandemic as we battle the current crisis. As
of today in collaboration with our partners, WHO, CEPI and UNICEF through
COVAX, a multilateral mechanism which aims to secure vaccines for COVID, we've
been able to provide over 45 million doses of the vaccine to 120 economies
across the world.
These doses are being used to protect healthcare
workers, the elderly and other high-risk groups and in turn those who are
closest to them but as you've heard, we're not where we need to be on equity
and this also needs intense focus.
00:24:07
COVAX has been a worldwide effort and the
support of governments and partners has been critical and similarly with the
launch of the Immunization Agenda 2030 we need the support of leaders and
others to ensure that no child is left behind.
One key target of the IA2030 strategy is to
reduce the number of zero-dose children by 50% by 2030. This will be a core
focus for us at GAVI. The cost of inaction is clear. Communities with large
numbers of under-immunised children are more vulnerable to disease outbreaks.
Outbreaks push the community further into
poverty as household health expenditures rise, impact a child's right to
survival and development, divert resources from already-stretched health
systems and pose significant risk to global health security.
Through partnerships and collaboration we can
leverage all of our strengths to reach communities and ensure they have the
tools they need to build a successful life, from education to clean water to
life-saving vaccines, and also have the systems to deliver epidemic vaccines
like yellow fever, cholera, meningitis, measles, even Ebola.
00:25:27
As you've also heard, it's critical that we
continue on the pathway of making sure that the research and development for
new vaccines and new technologies continues to bring us better, easier-to-use
and heat-stable vaccine.
So as we embark on this next phase of routine
immunisation we must recommit to fully immunising every child on Earth and
rapidly make up the ground we've lost to COVID-19, which Tedros has already
talked about.
This is not only a GAVI priority; it's closely
aligned with the core mission of the sustainable development goals to leave
no-one behind. Let's have vaccines bring us closer together. Let's all do our
part to make this a reality. Thank you, Dr Tedros, for including me.
TAG Thank
you. Thank you, Seth. Now for a few words about the specifics of the
Immunization Agenda 2030 I would like to turn to my colleague, Kate O'Brien,
WHO's Director of Immunisation, Vaccines and Biologicals. Kate, you have the
floor.
KOB Thank
you so much. You've heard that Immunization Agenda 2030 is this ambitious
global strategy to maximise the life-saving impact of vaccines in this new era
that we're all in.
00:26:51
It's really being launched at a critical time,
during World Immunization Week when all eyes are on vaccines and immunisation
programmes, those programmes that actually deliver those vaccines to people of
all ages in every corner of the world.
You've heard about some of the numbers, about
what achieving the agenda in this new decade would actually mean. It would mean
reducing by half the children who are completely left out of essential
vaccines, the zero-dose children.
It would mean achieving another 500
introductions of new and underused vaccines in low and middle-income countries.
It would also mean achieving 90% coverage of the key life-saving vaccines. If
those goals are achieved the latest estimates show that the strategy would
avert over 50 million deaths that would otherwise occur among children and
adolescents by 2030.
00:27:51
So this is a global strategy. It's created by
and for the global community and requires broad ownership by all immunisation
and non-immunisation stakeholders. It's designed to respond to every country in
the world regardless of income level or geography and it's not owned or the
sole responsibility of any one country or any one agency.
The IA2030 strategy puts people at the centre.
It's led by countries, implemented through broad partnerships and driven by
high-quality data. It positions immunisation as a key component of primary
healthcare to help achieve universal coverage and the sustainable development
goals, as Seth just mentioned.
It serves as an umbrella for all issues related
to vaccines and immunisation, guiding countries and regions to develop their
operational frameworks to make it real. Unlike many global plans IA2030 was
co-created through a collaborative bottom-up process that engaged thousands of
stakeholders around the world.
It also draws deeply on the lessons that have
been learned from this past decade of immunisation and addresses emerging
challenges such as COVID-19, demographic shifts and urbanisation.
00:29:10
Moving forward it will continue to champion a
collaborative, community-owned, country-participatory partnership approach to
immunisation. The goals are designed to inspire action at the local, national,
regional and global levels.
A framework for action has been developed to
ensure that we translate that vision that we've laid out into collective action
across all of those layers of countries and regions, civil society and
development partners.
It's an adaptive and flexible strategy so it
will be tailored by every country to their needs and situation and revised as
new opportunities and challenges emerge. This is a collective strategy and a
collective call to action, to maintain the hard-won gains in immunisation,
recover from the disruption caused by COVID-19, increase equitable access to
vaccines for everyone.
It will require a commitment from leaders,
investment and political will to ensure everyone at all ages in all countries
benefits from the life-saving impact of vaccines and brings us all closer to a
better and more equitable future. Thank you.
00:30:28
TAG Thank
you. Thank you, Kate and thanks again to Henrietta and Seth for joining us
today. Vaccines are a triumph of science. Science has always been at the heart
of WHO's work and never has science been so critical in addressing global
health challenges as it is now.
As part of WHO's transformation we established a
new science division two years ago, appointed WHO's first Chief Scientist and
last year we decided to establish a WHO science council to provide advice on
high-priority scientific issues that could have a direct impact on global
health.
The science council has now been established,
comprising nine leading scientists from around the world and will be chaired by
Professor Harold Barnes, the winner of the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine.
The council will hold its first meeting tomorrow
where it will decide on initial steps and programme of work. I'd like to thank
all the members of the council for joining. Thank you so much. Christian, back
to you.
00:31:49
CL Thank
you so much. Let me now open the floor to questions from the media. To get into
the queue to ask questions you need to raise your hand using the raise your
hand icon and then do not forget to unmute yourself. We will start on my list
with Paulina Alcasar from Encadena News. Paulina, please unmute yourself.
TR Thank
you very much, Christian. Can you hear me? Thank you. Our question is that
right now there is the world summit of tourism in Cancun that is taking place where
people are speaking about recovery and where they have sanitary bubbles in
place and the agenda is dealing with the impact on recovery, on travel starting
up again and trips for the future.
What message, Dr Tedros, could you give to this
important summit that is being carried out right now? Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much, Paulina. I'll ask Dr Van Kerkhove, please.
MK Yes,
thanks. I'll start and I'm sure others will want to come in because this is
such an important topic. As the world is recovering from the pandemic it would
behove me to say that we're still in the acute phase of this pandemic and the
trajectory that we are seeing globally is incredibly worrying with the ninth
straight week of increasing incidence around the world.
00:33:22
Clearly it's not being driven at the same level
of intensity around the world and we're all looking at how we reopen up
societies. These need to be done in a staged way, in a staged approach where
first and foremost we get control over this virus and there are many ways in
which we can take back control over the SARS-CoV-2 virus through a combination
of public health measures and individual-levels, at community levels, at
subnational levels, national levels, international levels.
There are medical interventions, vaccines and
vaccinations that are coming online but, as you've heard us say over and over
again, there is an uneven and inequitable distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine
so far.
We are seeing improvements in that but still
there's an inequitable distribution of that but as we gain control over this
virus there are ways in which societies can open up. This also includes travel
but it's about how an individual leaves their home through all of the different
stages of travel and looking at first and foremost does that travel need to
happen right now.
00:34:29
In many parts of the world that answer is no. In
some parts of the world where there are these travel bubbles that are
established where some countries have brought the virus under control, they
have very low levels of transmission or no transmission, they have opened up
these corridors and they have taken a risk-based approach into opening up and
into having the right characteristics for travel and keeping the passengers
safe from leaving their home all the way through.
We are working with our partners in the travel
industry, across many of the different hospitality industries as well to ensure
that when this does open up it can open up as safely as possible. Right now
there's no zero risk and so it's about measuring that risk and trying to
minimise the risk through the whole part of the travel experience. Others may
want to come in.
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Van Kerkhove. I'm looking around and not... Then we'll move
to the next question and that's Shoko Kuyama from Japanese TV, NHK. Shoko,
please unmute yourself.
00:35:37
SH Hello,
Christian.
CL Please
go ahead.
SH Thank
you for taking my question. My question is about the status of COVID-19
vaccines within the WHO emergency use listing evaluation procedure. Two Chinese
candidates; according to the latest guidance document the anticipated decision
dates are the end of April for Sinopharm and early May for Sinovac, if I'm
correct.
When exactly are these candidates going to be
assessed and when does WHO make a decision on whether to register these
vaccines for emergency use listing? Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much, Shoko. We should have Dr Mariangela Simao, our Assistant
Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products, online with us.
Dr Simao, please.
MS Good
morning and thank you for the question, Shoko. Can you hear me? We do have a
technical advisory group, an expert group meeting today and we'll meet the next
days to assess Sinopharm. We are meeting on Friday to assess Moderna and next week
on 5th may we will be assessing Sinovac.
00:36:54
So we expect that for Sinopharm we will have a
decision before the end of this week and for Sinovac most likely by the end of
next week. Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Simao. Next question goes to Nina Larson from AFP. Nina,
please unmute yourself.
NI Hi.
Thank you for taking my question. I want to ask about India, which has
temporarily frozen exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute
to help address the vaccine need there. I understand that COVAX was therefore
90 million doses short in March and April and I know you've asked for donations
from countries with excess doses to help compensate for that.
So I was wondering, how many have you received
so far if any and how confident are you that the Indian Government will release
vaccine doses to COVAX in May? Thank you.
CL Thank
you so much, Nina. We'll look at Dr Seth Berkley from GAVI, the vaccine
alliance possibly.
00:38:04
SB Yes,
thank you for that question. We are in early days on discussions on dose
sharing. We had an announcement last Friday from President Macron that he would
be sharing up to half a million doses and we've also had an announcement from
New Zealand that they would be sharing 1.6 million doses.
We've heard from the Spanish Prime Minister that
they would be sharing doses so we're beginning to see engagement from many on
dose-sharing, which is an important priority given the fact that countries have
purchased large portfolios of vaccines not knowing which would work and
therefore ultimately will have more doses than they need for their populations.
Your numbers are correct; we had expected 90
million doses for March and April for the 60 lowest-income countries including
India and those have not been made available given the crisis in India now.
They're being used domestically and we are waiting for when supplies will
resume. We're looking at other options at the same time. Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Berkley. The next question goes to Jenny Levello from Davex.
Jenny; no, she seems to have dropped. Okay. Then we move on to Simon Ateba from
Today News Africa. Simon, please unmute yourself.
00:39:39
SI Thank
you for taking my question. This is Simon Ateba with Today News Africa in
Washington DC. India was initially seen as a success story for its response to
COVID-19. Now thousands of people are dying in India every day, hundreds of
thousands of new infections are being recorded every day, all ventilators are
in use and intensive care units are operating at full capacity. The healthcare
system is on the brink of collapse.
The same situation is happening in Africa.
Africa has been seen, was seen initially as a success story with fewer cases
and fewer deaths. How worried are you that what we are seeing in India right
now may likely happen in Africa and when can we expect most people in Africa to
be fully vaccinated? Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much. I'll hand over to Dr Maria Van Kerkhove.
MK I'll
start with the first part of that question. Simon, as you've pointed out, the
situation in India is really heartbreaking, as the Director-General has said
and the exponential growth that we've seen in case numbers is really, truly
astonishing.
00:40:47
We have seen similar trajectories of increases
in transmission in a number of countries. It has not been at the same scale and
it has not had the same level of impact in burden on the healthcare system that
we've seen in India but we have seen similar trajectories where the incidence
was almost vertical if you looked at that epi curve.
This can happen in a number of countries, in any
countries if we let our guard down. I'm not saying that India has let its guard
down but I'm saying we're in a fragile situation. Nine weeks of case incidence
increasing, almost 5.7 million cases reported last week and that is certainly
an underestimate of the true number of cases, of infections that have occurred
in the last week.
It's a fragile situation globally and we really
have the elements around the world with a lack of strategic and comprehensive
use of public health and societal measures for a variety of reasons, some
because some individuals cannot attain physical distancing, living in very
crowded situations, cannot use masks properly because they don't have
three-layer fabric masks, or for a number of reasons or social gatherings
taking place.
00:42:02
We still need to apply all of these elements of
physical distancing as much as we can, avoiding mass gatherings, avoiding
crowded spaces, improving ventilation in indoor settings, spending as much time
as we can outdoors compared to indoors and using vaccines as much as we can for
front-line workers and those who are most at risk.
So the situation is fragile, the situation can
grow if we allow it to and this is why it's important that every single person
on the planet knows that they have a role to play and we need governments to be
able to support them in taking the actions that will inform them about what
they need to do and keep them safe and make sure that they can actually carry
out the measures that are being asked of them in the local situation where they
are.
So I think you present a situation across India
but also in Africa, as you mentioned. We do need to not let our guard down and
really follow through on all of these measures that we can and make sure that
governments continue to apply comprehensive approaches, informing, engaging,
enabling populations so that they know what they need to do to keep themselves
and their loved ones safe.
00:43:16
CL Thank
you very much. Dr O'Brien, please.
KOB Just
the second part of the question which was about when would we see full
vaccination in Africa; I think the best answer to that is that the actions that
are taken now and in the very near future are going to determine that.
Obviously the critical issue is supply and
having adequate supply to serve all people in all countries who need
vaccination. There are actions that can be taken now both through funding from
countries, through dose-sharing, through increasing manufacturing, which we've
talked about before, about what the steps are to rapidly accelerate
manufacturing now and in the medium and longer term.
I think the other issue is the importance of
equitable distribution of those vaccines. As we've said so many times, there
are a large number of doses that are inequitably distributed and this is not
going to result in immunity and vaccination of all countries at the same pace
to protect those who are most vulnerable.
I think we really have to focus on the
healthcare workers now in many countries who do not yet have vaccination
access, do not yet have adequate supply in countries and there are many
countries that have started vaccination but not enough doses to actually give
the second dose at this point.
So we're in a really critical phase right now of
assuring that those at highest risks - healthcare workers, those who have
highest risk of hospitalisation and death - are prioritised in all countries
around the world and that means moving supply into countries that have
inadequate supply at this point to actually deliver that critical public health
benefit.
CL Thank
you so much. Just to inform you that Dr Seth Berkley and Ms Henrietta Fore had
to leave for other engagements but we do have online with us Dr Robin Nandy,
UNICEF Chief of Immunisation, and I would like to see if he wanted to chip in
on this question. Dr Nandy.
RN Hi.
I think Kate and Maria answered the question appropriately and I just want to
reiterate the message of Dr Tedros, Henrietta Fore and Seth Berkley about the
importance of delivering COVID-19 vaccine in parallel to existing childhood
vaccination as well.
00:45:04
As more and more COVID-19 vaccines are available
there is a chance of further disruption of routine immunisation services. What
we don't want to see is concurrent outbreaks of other vaccine-preventable
diseases as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic because that would be a
disaster to the health system, to the economy, to families and to communities.
Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Nandy. Again this was Dr Robin Nandy, UNICEF's Chief of
Immunisation and I'm looking at Dr Bruce Aylward, Special Advisor to the
Director-General and the Lead on the ACT Accelerator, here in the room.
BA Thanks,
Christian, and thanks, Simon, for this question. It's so important and we just
want to come back and make a few more comments on it. If you think back just
three months ago very few countries, almost none in Africa had even started
vaccinating and as of today all but seven countries in the African Union have now
actually got vaccine and they've been able to start vaccination.
So I think that proves, Simon, where there's a
will and truly and international will there is a way to get people vaccinated
in the places that they have to get vaccinated and when you ask what we can
expect in terms of seeing fully vaccinated populations in Africa, the goal is
to ensure at least 30% of the population in Africa is vaccinated this year.
00:47:31
As you know, the goal of COVAX, originally at
20%, has been increased now to try and get that vaccination and as Kate alluded
to, that would be sufficient to cover the healthcare workers, the older
population and most of the populations at risk of severe disease or death.
But the only way we're going to achieve that is
if there's a fundamental shift in the way that we are distributing vaccines and
as we've called on earlier today - we're calling on countries with excess doses
to do their part in trying to ensure there are sufficient doses going to Africa
to hit those targets through COVAX.
But also there's a very, very important role for
suppliers to be playing here as well and we're calling also on the suppliers to
ensure that when they have additional capacity as they develop it they offer it
to COVAX before they offer it to high-income countries or upper-middle-income
countries or the highest bidders.
00:48:28
We're asking also that suppliers make sure that
they make offers to countries with excess doses that they will work with them
to ensure those doses can contractually be moved to COVAX. So there are many
things that can be done, not just by the countries that hold some of these
contracts but also the suppliers with whom those contracts are held.
We need the collaboration of both sides working
with us in COVAX and with GAVI and UNICEF, our partners, to make sure that we
can have access to that capacity because that's the only way, Simon, that we're
going to hit those coverage targets which could fundamentally change the risk
of severe disease in Africa in the very short term actually.
CL Thank
you all so much. The next question goes to Arwin Bashinger from Observer Times
India. Arwin, please unmute yourself.
AR Thank
you for considering my question. How is [unclear] categorisation being done by
the governments of countries during the COVID-19 pandemic for providing routine
immunisation services? Is there an essential need for separate infrastructure
for immunising pregnant women and infants network [?] along with the mobile
clinic? Thank you.
00:49:56
CL Thank
you very much, Arwin. I'm not sure we got all your points individually but
maybe Dr O'Brien can start and we'll see if we cover most of them.
KOB Yes,
it was a little bit difficult to hear you but I think your question was
primarily around maintaining routine immunisation services during the COVID
pandemic in countries and especially the attention to services for pregnant
women and for infants.
I think the important thing to remind people of
is these are life-saving vaccines just as COVID vaccine is a life-saving
vaccine. The portfolio of vaccines that is provided; there are 12 vaccines that
are in the programme of every country around the world and they are in every
country around the world because these are life-threatening diseases that
without vaccines would result in upwards of four million deaths every year,
year in and year out.
00:50:58
So that's what the programmes are doing already.
In the course of the COVID pandemic we've reported previously that there was a
massive disruption to those immunisation services. Over two-thirds of countries
reported very significant disruptions and now still over a third of countries
are reporting significant disruptions.
So the importance of countries recovering these
routine immunisation programmes and doing so in a way that protects the health
workers who are delivering services and protects those who are coming for the
services so that they can receive life-saving vaccines without feeling they're
being put at risk of a COVID exposure.
These are the kinds of investments that
countries are making and frankly it costs more money to deliver services
because of the personal protective equipment that health workers need in order
to protect themselves, because of the expansion of clinic hours that is needed
to assure that people aren't in crowded circumstances.
We would strongly support and encourage
countries especially to return with every effort the services to their
pre-pandemic levels and to go beyond that to assure that children and pregnant
women and older adults and adolescents are able to receive those life-saving
vaccines that are available and needed for a healthy future for all of those
ages.
00:52:37
CL Thank
you very much, Dr O'Brien. The next question goes to Stephanie Nebahe from
Reuters. No, she has dropped off. Then we move to Todd Gillespie from
Bloomberg. He also dropped. All the questions were answered already. Let's go
for Jeremy Launch - this might be our last question anyway - from LFE. Jeremy,
please unmute yourself.
JE Thank
you so much. I didn't drop so here's my question. I was referring to what you
said about the disruption of the immunisation campaigns. I was wondering, do
you fear that beyond the disruption that we see the manufacturers might have
trouble getting raw materials for non-COVID vaccines?
CL Thank
you very much, Jeremy. Dr O'Brien, please.
KOB Yes,
we've been working with and looking carefully at the production of the
non-COVID vaccines, the vaccines that are throughout the regular programme and
looking very carefully at the pace of production. There is of course play in
the system. Vaccines are not produced in a just-in-time fashion so there is
some flexibility within the system.
00:54:01
We've seen that flexibility actually diminish
over time so there is less capacity sitting in the supply chain. We have seen
some countries that have had disruptions to their supply but none that have
been severe and none that have been prolonged.
That being said, virtually all of the
manufacturers of routine immunisations and the essential immunisation
programme; the vast majority of them are involved in one way or another with
the development and production of COVID vaccines so especially as there's
pressure on the COVID manufacturing this is a very important area to assure
that we don't end up in a situation where we have supply constraint on the many
other vaccines that are in the programme.
So we're not in a crisis situation right now and
we have a limited number of examples where there has been a supply disruption
for a short period of time but this has to remain an area where we're very
attentive and the manufacturers are very attentive both to, as you say, raw
materials and the other components that are needed beyond the raw materials to
actually produce vaccines.
00:55:23
I might ask if Robin Nandy from UNICEF... UNICEF,
as we've mentioned, is the largest procurer of vaccines around the world and I
wonder if Robin has something he would like to add to this.
RN Again,
Kate, you've covered the response very well. I think the other piece is that
while we saw a drop in supply of vaccines over the last year we've also seen a
drop in consumption and this means that we haven't seen large-scale stock-outs.
We are working with the manufacturers to
carefully forecast vaccine needs over the next several months to make sure that
we have adequate attention to both routine vaccines as well as COVID-19
vaccine.
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Nandy. With this we've come to the end of our briefing. Thank
you all for your participation. We will be sending the audio file and Dr
Tedros' remarks right after the press conference and the full transcript will
be posted on the WHO website tomorrow morning. For any other follow-up
questions please send an email to mediaenquiries@who.int
Dr Tedros, please.
TAG Thank
you. I would like to thank Henrietta and Seth for joining and all media
colleagues who have joined today and see you in our upcoming presser. Thank
you.
00:57:11