WHO press conference on coronavirus disease (COVID-19) - 18 August 2021
00:00:12
TJ Hello too all reporters watching us through Zoom connection and hello to everyone watching us on a number of WHO social media platforms. Today is Wednesday August 18th. My name is Tarik and I welcome you to the regular COVID-19 press briefing from WHO headquarters here in Geneva. I will introduce our speakers.
In the room we have Dr Tedros, WHO Director-General, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead on COVID-19, Dr Ibrahima Soce Fall, Assistant Director-General for Emergency Response, Dr Bruce Aylward, who is the Lead on the ACT Accelerator, Dr Mariangela Simao, Assistant Director-General, Access to Medicines and Health Products.
Online with us we have Dr Mike Ryan, Executive Director of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme. We have Stave Solomon, who is Principal Legal Officer. Anna Maria Henao Restrepo is with us and she is Co-Lead of the Research and Development Blueprint at WHO. Ann Lindstrand is the Unit Head of the Essential Programme of Immunisation. I understand we also have our Chief Scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan.
With us also is Dr Joachim Hombach from the SAGE Secretariat in case we need to ask him some questions. We have as always simultaneous interpretation in the six UN languages, Portuguese and Hindi and we thank our interpreters here in the room. With this I'll give the floor to Dr Tedros for his opening remarks.
00:02:06
TAG Thank you. Thank you, Tarik. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. I want to start by paying tribute to Dr Osman Toure, a brilliant epidemiologist from Guinea who on deployment to Haiti tragically died in the earthquake that hit the country on Saturday morning. Dr Toure was a hard-working, dedicated and much-loved team member that worked around the clock to help communities beat Ebola in both West Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
At just 39 with a wife and two beautiful daughters aged just four and one his death is a heartbreaking reminder of the dangers many WHO staff put themselves in working on the front lines of health and humanitarian responses. I want to send my condolences to his family and friends and also Guinea at this impossibly difficult time.
In Haiti so far we know that the earthquake has killed more than 1,900 people, left thousands more injured and homeless and impacted more than two million people. To compound the situation Tropical Storm Grace caused heavy rain and flooding in the country.
00:03:43
Our colleagues at PAHO have helped send emergency medical teams and supplies. They have also been on the ground supporting the authorities with an assessment of the damage to health facilities. Four have been destroyed and a further 20 damaged.
Urgent needs include medical personnel, health tools and logistical support for the delivery of supplies, deployment of people and transfer of patients. We're continuing to support the Government and people of Haiti by all means possible during this difficult moment.
The people of Afghanistan are also facing an enormous challenge. In the midst of a pandemic we're extremely concerned by the large displacement of people and increasing cases of diarrhoea, malnutrition, high blood pressure, probable cases of COVID-19 and reproductive health complications.
There is an immediate need to ensure sustained humanitarian access and continuity of health services across the country with a focus on ensuring women and girls have access to female health workers.
00:05:04
We're particularly concerned about the health and well-being of women and girls. I call on the international community and all actors to prioritise their access to all health services and to safeguard their futures. We cannot backslide on two decades of progress.
Our staff remain in the country and committed to delivering health services to the most vulnerable. Yesterday WHO dispatched trauma kits and other medical supplies to help healthcare workers responding to the increases in injuries they're seeing.
I also spoke to the acting Health Minister, Dr Wahad Majrooh. He's in Kabul working to avoid disruptions and keep essential health services moving and I thanked him for his commitment to stay in the country to help the needy. I assured him that WHO and staff will continue to support the country.
00:06:15
With World Humanitarian Day tomorrow I can honestly say that I have never seen so many emergencies happening simultaneously. This moment in history is one of extreme fragility. Member states tempted to slip into isolation would do better engaging with one another.
The humanitarian system is being pushed to its absolute limit and beyond by the climate crisis, natural disasters, conflict and the pandemic. As urban areas expand humans and animals are living in ever closer proximity and we're seeing increasing numbers of spillover events.
Two weeks ago we notified the world of a case of Marburg in Guinea. This week a new case of Ebola was identified in Cote d'Ivoire, marking the third outbreak of Ebola this year. The patient confirmed with the Ebola virus had travelled to Abidjan by road from Guinea, putting both countries on an emergency footing.
Thousands of doses of Ebola vaccines were sent from Guinea to Cote d'Ivoire and ring vaccination of high-risk contacts has started. We will continue to do our best and WHO deployed experts to join their country-based counterparts to support the Ministry of Health to ramp up infection prevention and control, diagnostics, contact tracing, treatment, community mobilisation and cross-border surveillance.
00:08:00
Guinea also deployed ring vaccination experts and provided, along with partners, shared monoclonal antibody treatments to Cote d'Ivoire. Solidarity and leadership of this sort is the best weapon against a dangerous virus that doesn't respect borders.
Effective early treatment and supportive care can significantly improve the chances of surviving Ebola and ring vaccination can help stop and outbreak in its tracks. This level of solidarity would be useful in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year around this time WHO warned about vaccine nationalism and how it would only prolong the pandemic. For the past year we have called on countries to share doses and scale up manufacturing equitably. Some countries are now sharing doses. The largest is the US, which we appreciate and encourage others to follow by sharing more doses faster.
Delta continues to outpace our collective response and within each country hot spots of hospitalisation and death are where there are low levels of vaccination and limited public health measures.
00:09:35
We do have solutions to the challenges of delta and current variants. That's why the strategic preparedness and response plan urgently needs an additional US$1 billion and in addition under a multi-agency funding ask the ACT Accelerator launched a US$7.7 billion appeal. The aim is to rapidly scale up testing, oxygen supplies, treatments, vaccines, protective equipment for health workers and enhance research and development into the next generation of health tools.
At present just ten countries have administered 75% of all vaccine supplies and low-income countries have vaccinated barely 2% of their people. I called for a temporary moratorium on boosters to help shift supply to those countries that have not been able to vaccinate their health workers and at-risk communities and are now experiencing major spikes.
Last week WHO brought together 2,000 experts from all around the world and debated the available data on boosters. What is clear is that it's critical to get first shots into arms and protect the most vulnerable before boosters are rolled out.
00:11:02
The divide between the haves and have-nots will only grow larger if manufacturers and leaders prioritise booster shots over supply to low and middle-income countries. The virus is evolving and it's not in the best interests of leaders just to focus on narrow nationalistic goals when we live in an interconnected world and the virus is mutating quickly.
In fact strong national leadership will be to fully commit to vaccine equity and global solidarity, which would save lives and slow variants down. In this context I was stunned by the news that J&J vaccines filled and finished in South Africa are leaving the continent and going to Europe where virtually all adults have been offered vaccines at this point.
We urge J&J to urgently priorities distribution of their vaccines to Africa before considering supplies to rich countries that already have sufficient access.
Furthermore following WHO recommendations regarding the use of IL6 blockers that showed a reduction in death amongst patients hospitalised with severe COVID-19 our current challenge is again limited supply.
00:12:40
We call for equitable allocation and for Roche, the drug maker, to share technology and know-how. To overcome these fragile times we must do better at sharing resources and health tools. Our mutual resilience is only as strong as our weakest bond. Vaccine injustice is a shame on all humanity and if we don't tackle it together we will prolong the acute stage of this pandemic for years when it could be over in a matter of months.
When G20 health ministers meet on 5th and 6th September in Rome I will call on them to consider the fragility of this historic moment and make a clear, defining commitment to solidarity, from identifying the origins to sharing vaccines fairly to building resilient societies that are prepared for climatic shocks and future disease outbreaks.
This is our great calling and I urge leaders to come together and match it. Whether it's pandemic response, new disease outbreaks of Marburg or Ebola, civil unrest, an earthquake in Haiti or responding to the effects of the climate crisis WHO will always be there working to save lives, strengthen science, find solutions and build solidarity. Tarik, back to you.
TJ Thank you, Dr Tedros. We will now open the floor to questions. We would remind journalists to ask only one question so we can get as many as possible. As I have said, journalists may ask questions in the six UN languages and Portuguese. With this we will start with Reuters; Stephanie Nebahe. Stephanie.
00:14:52
ST Thanks very much, Tarik. Hello, everybody. Dr Tedros, you referred to the delta variant as outpacing the response. I wonder if someone could comment please on how in some cases the delta variant is breaking through and infecting people who have even been double-vaccinated. I wonder if someone could talk about what sort of patient profile seems to be most vulnerable to contracting the disease despite having been double-vaccinated. Thank you.
MK I was wondering if Ann wanted to take that because you talk about vaccination but since I have the floor can I just take a moment about the delta variant itself. Stephanie, you ask a very important question but I want to put it into context because the delta variant of course is the latest variant of concern that we are tracking around the world.
00:15:55
It definitely has increased transmissibility. We're really working with scientists around the world to understand why but I want to emphasise that it's the circulation of the delta variant in the context of many other factors that is really driving the transmission around the world.
As the Director-General said in his speech, many of the places around the world where delta is surging, even in countries at a national level that have high levels of vaccination coverage, the virus, the delta variant itself is really circulating in areas of low levels of vaccine coverage and in the context of very limited and inconsistent use of public health and social measures.
When you have people that are mixing, coming together, the delta variant circulating, low levels of vaccine coverage and inappropriate or non-existent use of public health measures like masks, like physical distancing, avoiding crowded spaces, good ventilation, spending more time indoors together in packed areas where the virus will thrive as opposed to outdoors; this is the situation where the virus is thriving.
So the delta variant itself is more dangerous because it is more transmissible and that will lead to more cases, more hospitalisations, more people resulting in severe disease and ultimately more people dying in the context of those other factors.
00:17:19
I mention this because we have tools. Maybe Ann will come in and speak specifically about vaccination but we do know that the vaccines work against severe disease and death so when it is your turn please get vaccinated and receive the full course of those doses because there are people around the world that are begging for those doses and so we really need to be using those most appropriately around the world to bring this virus under control.
TJ Thank you. Dr Swaminathan, would you like to add something?
SS Thank you, Tarik and thanks, Stephanie. I think Maria has answered the question very well. When the clinical trials for many of these vaccines that are currently in use were done delta was not the major variant that was circulating in the world and in any case the vaccines that were studied were looking at symptomatic disease and particularly severe disease as endpoints.
00:18:21
Because delta is so much more transmissible we do see these breakthrough infections occurring in people who've received both vaccines but if you look at the outcomes that we're really concerned about, which are severe disease, hospitalisation and death, those are clearly being prevented by the vaccines and that's true for delta as well.
So as Maria just said, the increase in cases that we're seeing in countries are mainly among the unvaccinated; they're the ones landing up in the hospital. There are studies now looking at what happened over a period of time because there are so many moving parts; we have the variants that are changing, there are different vaccines in use around the world and of course each vaccine could have a slightly different immune response, and there are all the other factors which people are experiencing through social mixing, which is encouraging the transmission of the virus.
So I think the bottom line is that the vaccines that are currently being used, that are approved are still protecting to the tune of about 90% or more against the severe disease outcomes while breakthrough infections, mostly mild, are occurring.
00:19:39
This is why masking is so important and there's been some recent modelling done to show that even in countries with high vaccination coverage everyone wearing a mask will help drive down community transmission much faster.
So I think for the time being we should go with encouraging as much vaccination as possible, which can only happen if countries share the doses with those who don't have enough as well as the personal protective measures and all the other public health measures that we know work. Thanks. Maybe Ann wants to add some data to this.
TJ Thank you, Soumya. I understand Ann is fine with these answers so let's go to the next question. We have Gunila van Hall from a Swedish newspaper. Gunila.
GU Yes, hello. Can you hear me?
TJ Yes.
00:20:39
GU Good. I have a question also connected to the vaccine booster dose. What data do you have today not only from vaccine makers, of the decreased protection after two doses especially when it concerns the delta variant?
Isn't it understandable at the same that more and more rich countries now are preparing to have booster strategies? Isn't this after all understandable? They want to protect their own populations. Thanks.
TJ Thank you. Maybe Dr Swaminathan or Dr Hombach; who would like to take this one?
SS I think Dr Hombach can come in because the SAGE has recently put out a note, an update on their position on the need for boosters and also the need for more research on boosters because we believe clearly that the data to date does not indicate that boosters are needed.
We need to know which groups at what period after the vaccination and which particular vaccines people have received in their primary course but Joachim can elaborate on the SAGE guidance in this regard.
JH Yes, thank you. We have indeed ten days ago put out a little note that basically summarises the state of knowledge and also the data that will be needed in order to move ahead.
00:22:02
I think what is important in relation to your question is that there may be two things that intertwine and it's important to keep them separated. No vaccine is 100% effective and if you have high vaccine coverage you will of course always have cases, breakthrough infections or what we also call primary failures where the vaccine actually doesn't work.
That is normal, that occurs and the proportion in which this happens may differ from vaccine to vaccine, [unclear].
Then comes the other topic which is the issue to waning protection and that basically means a decline over time. The first thing is that we actually have pretty little data on this and so we are certainly gathering more data.
There are some pieces of information that have come out which I think have been very widely discussed already in the press which indeed suggest some decline in protective efficacy in relation however - and that's the important point and Soumya said it before - in relation to mild disease and infection.
00:23:12
We virtually have not seen a decline in relation to really the most important objective that we have, namely the prevention of severe disease. So that is the stage at which we are. The analysis is extremely complicated because obviously we have not many studies, we have different vaccine, we have the emergence of variants and we have different population groups.
But what is clear is that we do not have sufficient information and the data does not suggest that at that point in time we need booster vaccinations. That's the current situation and that is the position that we have put out.
TJ Dr Ryan would like to add something. Dr Ryan.
MR Great, thanks, Tarik. I just want to add - Joachim and Soumya and others have laid this out. I think though regardless of what ultimately the science comes to an agreement on regarding the length of protection or the marginal increase in benefits from having booster doses, the reality is right now today if we think about this in terms of an analogy, we're planning to hand out extra life-jackets to people who already have life-jackets while we're leaving other people to drown without a single life jacket. That's the reality.
00:24:38
Science is not certain on this. There's clearly more data to collect but the fundamental ethical reality is we're handing out second life-jackets while leaving millions and millions of people without anything to protect them.
TJ Thank you, Dr Ryan. Let me see if anyone else would like to add something. Dr Henao Restrepo, would you like to add something, or Dr Lindstrand?
HR Thank you very much, Tarik. Just to mention that we have a consultation with 1,900 participants, all the global exports on COVID vaccine. Our consultation last Friday August 13th included scientists, developers of vaccine, policymakers, regulators and the public policymakers at large.
During this consultation what we tried to do was provide a framework for the discussion that Dr Ryan was proposing and saying; about what is the science behind booster doses so that if we make a decision we use the science to inform our decisions.
00:25:50
As noted, we have received randomised data that is lacking information on the variants, on the delta variant. The reductions in vaccine neutralisation titres [?] cannot be properly linked to clinical outcomes and what is the clinical relevance of this observant report by the doctors is not yet known.
We have observational studies, most of them conducted in countries with health coverage, as noted, and therefore there is complexity in the interpretation of this data and overall the clinical evidence on the need for booster doses is sparse.
We are going to continue to work to implement a co-ordinated research agenda that would allow all of us working together to bring the closer to ending the pandemic for everybody. Thank you.
TJ Many thanks, Dr Henao Restrepo. We will go to the next question. We have Micheline du Clef from NPR. Micheline. Can you unmute yourself, Micheline, please?
MI Yes. Hello. Can you hear me now?
TJ Yes.
MI Sorry. I wanted to get a comment or a response to the fact that the Biden administration is supposed to recommend boosters today at a press briefing. I know you've already discussed it a little bit but I'm wondering if you'd respond directly to the fact that it looks as if they're going to be recommending boosters for all Americans over age 12 after eight months' vaccination. Any other response to that?
00:27:36
TJ I think we just covered that question. I don't know if anyone wants to add anything.
MI Actually maybe I can say something more specific. I think that there is this question, this idea in America that it's a false choice. That there's enough vaccine supply to both give Americans boosters and cover the rest of the world. Is that the case, next year will there be 14 billion doses available, is supply not an issue?
TJ Dr Aylward.
BA Hi, Micheline, and thank you for the question. If supply were not an issue we wouldn't have the problem that we do in COVAX right now.
00:28:22
In terms of enough supply to reach those populations that are at highest risk around the world, the healthcare workers, the older populations, the comorbids, yes, there is enough vaccine. As of today 4.7 billion doses of vaccine have been administered around the world; that will soon pass the five billion mark. So yes, there is enough vaccine around the world.
However it's not going to the right places in the right order to save as many lives, prevent as much severe disease as possible and until that happens it's difficult to understand the position that there is enough vaccine going to the places that need it.
Because if you look at COVAX today we have shipped 200 million doses of vaccine. The goal is double, triple, quadruple that and certainly by the end of this year to have reached over two billion doses.
There's one reason we cannot do that; supply. We can move the vaccine out, we can ship the vaccine out but we can't ship vaccine that isn't in COVAX. So the global supply is definitely a problem; we are still supply-constrained and also you'll remember, a little bit to the question that Gunila asked earlier, as countries start making choices about how they vaccinate other countries will follow those choices and the problem that we end up with is that we lose that solidarity of working as a global community, which is absolutely crucial to getting out of a pandemic.
00:29:53
We don't know if booster doses are going to make a big difference in terms of severe disease and death in the near term. You've just heard the scientists speak to the evidence in that regard. We do know that vaccinating many more people who were unvaccinated will save lives so it's a fairly straightforward proposition.
TJ Thank you. Dr Swaminathan, would you like to add?
SS Just very briefly to add to what Bruce said, just some numbers out there; I think if all high-income countries decide that they would like to give booster doses to their above-50 populations we're looking at then close to a billion doses that are going to be needed for those boosters.
00:30:36
Many countries are already beginning even in 2021 and once you begin a programme like that it's very hard to step back. So the right thing to do right now on the science side is to wait for the science to tell us when boosters, which groups of people and which vaccines need boosters.
The second argument is a moral and ethical argument of giving people third doses when they're already well-protected and while the rest of the world is waiting for their primary immunisation.
I want to make a distinction here between an earlier announcement from the FDA and the CDC about giving a third dose in the primary vaccination series to people who are immunocompromised, whose immune systems don't work well because there there's some evidence that a third dose actually helps to bring those antibody levels up in these people because their immune system...
That's a small number of people and they should be protected because they are at high risk but if we're talking about everyone in high-income countries getting a booster this is an impossible situation and I'm afraid that this will only lead to more variants, to more escaped variants and perhaps we're heading into even more dire situations.
00:31:51
But I think, let's focus on the science and make decisions that are based on science. Thanks.
TJ Thanks, Dr Swaminathan. Next question, German news agency, DPA; Christiane Ulrich. Christiane.
CH Thank you very much for taking my question. This is also about the supply. We hear from Africa that a lot of countries have problems administering those doses because there's such reluctance and so much misinformation about the quality of the vaccines.
DRC has returned 1.4 out of the 1.7 million doses that were delivered because they couldn't use them. Sudan has returned vaccine doses; Comoros has returned them. How do you get out of this conundrum? It doesn't seem to be that millions of people everywhere are desperate to get the vaccines. There seems to be a lot of mistrust out there. Thank you.
TJ Thank you, Christiane. Maybe Dr Aylward and Dr Lindstrand can take these; maybe Dr Aylward first.
00:33:08
BA Thank you, Tarik. Christiane, it's a really important question but what you've described; you could change the names of provinces in some countries, of cities in high-income countries or states in other high-income countries. Every single part of the world is having to reallocate, as we call it, or move doses around to areas where there's a higher or lower level of absorptive capacity.
You hear the same thing in the high-income countries, you hear the same thing in Europe, especially in the initial roll-out. So I think we have to be very careful that we don't apply a different standard to the low-income countries that have no vaccines than we do to the high-income countries that have lots of vaccines.
The reality is it's a very, very mixed or heterogeneous situation. In some areas, yes, they may not have been ready and may have had to move vaccines. In other areas we cannot keep up with the supply; I'm talking about low-income countries, areas of Africa in particular.
By the way, part of the reason, Christiane, some places had to say, we will forgo those and wait, is because they had a very short expiry date; some countries had said, okay, we don't need these vaccines, we'll donate those vaccines to an area and that are said, look, that vaccine's got a one-month expiry, we can't use it.
00:34:33
So it's a complicated situation in that regard but overall lots of countries in the global south are very, very short and so what we've done - and Ann may speak to this - is look closely at - all of the countries that have vaccination coverage less than 10% as of today are at high risk of not reaching the 10% of the population by the end of September, which is our goal and then toward 40% and 60%, as you know.
When we look at that group of countries it's a very small number - I think it was nine out of the 92 that were looked at - where anything other than insufficient supply was the main driver of the low coverage.
So I think just as we look at, this country may have had to have some reallocated or this may have had to have some removed, we need to look as well at the other side; how many are actually unable to get enough vaccines to keep up with the demand. That number in the low-income countries is much higher than the few countries that are continually singled out because the story about South Sudan and others; that's the same story we keep hearing but you need to look across a much greater group of countries.
00:35:47
Again right where I started; we see the exact same thing in the high-income countries. Last week we were talking to a pharmacist in a high-income country who said, I don't understand, they keep sending me vaccines and I can't use the vaccines that I have and I throw most of it away every single week.
Everyone faces... Not everyone; we're seeing this problem in other places.
TJ Thank you, Dr Aylward. Dr Lindstrand, would you like to add?
AL Yes, I just wanted to add that trust in vaccines is important and every country needs to both survey what is the information and what is the demand in their population, what are the reasons why maybe people are hesitant or not and then respond to that with the sound scientific advice in a way that people understand.
00:36:38
But way more important now is that this piece is a small problem at the moment. It may be, just as it has been in some high-income countries, a time when the queue starts to shorten and you need some more convincing of people who have questions, some more time you need to spend to explain about the effectiveness and the safety of the vaccines. It's a big ask for healthcare workers all around the world.
I just wanted to say as well that wastage and expiry; short time to expiry is a problem in some countries, in many countries, high and low-income countries and many countries are then facing the surge that they need to do to catch up and do an increase of uptake before the expiry dates.
Yes, there've been occasions when countries have raised their hands and said, please, let's share the doses before the expiry, we all know that we need to use these doses to help end this pandemic quickly and a certain number of doses both in high and low-income countries have been wasted.
00:37:53
That is not new to routine immunisation either. That happens in regular routine immunisation as well. It's a task that immunisation programmes around the world face all the time. What we do have in COVAX and which many countries now work on is a good information system for sharing when we are approaching the expiry dates.
At a certain number of weeks ahead they need to signal and then let's see if we can mitigate, either increasing the delivery capacity and roll-out or maybe sharing the doses across. I don't say it's watertight but it's a system that is trying to mitigate the least loss of the doses that we can possibly have. Thank you.
TJ Many thanks. Next question, Simon Ateba, Today News Africa. Simon.
SI Thank you for taking my question. This is Simon Ateba with Today News Africa in Washington DC. It's also about booster shots. Here in Washington DC even though the President's focused on Afghanistan he's set to deliver remarks on COVID-19 and vaccination and in a way he will endorse the booster shot for Americans.
I'm wondering, beyond the fact that the WHO is saying that this will affect developing countries getting their first shot, what do you make of the argument by the CDC and the FDA that the current Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines do not have strong protection beyond eight months?
00:39:36
I understand you are saying you don't have enough data because vaccination is so new but what do you make of the arguments here in the US that after eight months people who have had the first two doses of Pfizer and other vaccines will be exactly like the people who have not been vaccinated, especially against the delta variant, and need a third shot? Thank you.
TJ Thank you, Simon. I think we really covered this topic with three questions already but maybe Dr Aylward would like to add something.
BA Yes, thanks, Simon. Hi and good day again. Simon, I think another way to think about this situation and our position, as you've asked, is what's driving the current epidemic or the current upsurge of cases everywhere; what's behind it. Everywhere what we're seeing is it's being driven primarily by unvaccinated people. The problem is not enough people have been vaccinated.
00:40:39
When we look at the deaths around the world - and I think Maria spoke to this earlier - this is being driven by the low rates of vaccination in areas so our first priority has got to be - it's relatively simple - get as many of the unvaccinated with two doses before you move beyond that.
We do approach this - we are the World Health Organization; we have an equal responsibility to populations and member states everywhere, which means that we need to look at this collectively in terms of how we tackle this disease.
So again what makes most sense is get at least two doses into the unvaccinated before we get more doses into the well-vaccinated, as Mike referred to as well. At this point there are billions and billions and billions of people who are unvaccinated and those billions of people live in the low-income, low-middle-income countries where we are unable to secure enough supply.
At the end of the day it's a zero-sum game; when COVAX says, we have enough vaccine, then let's look at boosters. We are a long, long way from that.
TJ Thank you, Dr Aylward. Let's go to AFP, Nina Larson. Nina.
NI Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the origins study. China last week rejected the call for renewed investigation and sharing of raw data as political and I'm just wondering what kind of discussions you're having with them now and if you see a way forward for the investigation without Beijing's co-operation.
00:42:33
I'm sorry; if I may I also was just hoping for a short comment, if you have one, on the Ashura, which is beginning in Iraq's Karbala today, if you have any concerns about the large numbers of people who are gathering there and what suggestions you might have. Thank you.
MK Thanks, Nina. I can start; Mike may want to come in on this and I'll take the question on the origins. As you know, the mission that returned at the beginning of the year issued their report in March, the international team issued their report and they've outlined a number of studies that need to continue for us to be able to better understand the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
00:43:18
I think those next steps are very clear. It's a series of studies following a number of hypotheses and these will all be pursued. Of course we expect to work with all member states on finding the origins of SARS-CoV-2, including China and making sure that we really understand how this pandemic began.
So we expect the full co-operation of all of our member states and in fact one of the things that we are trying to do is actually look to establish a larger framework on studying the origins of any future novel pathogens.
We will be establishing a scientific advisory group specifically on studying the emergence of novel pathogens going forward so that we have this larger framework and a systematic way in which this is studied because we know that there will be more emerging pathogens.
Unfortunately this is likely to not be the last pandemic. that all of us will have to deal with in our lives. I hope I'm wrong but we need a proper framework to study this and we do expect... We work with scientists around the world. This is what we do every day. Even the two outbreaks we see of Marburg and of Ebola right now for example; we need to understand how each of these pathogens breaks, jumps into the human species.
00:44:37
So we will continue to work with member states to advance the studies on the SARS-CoV-2 origins.
TJ Dr Ryan, would you like to add?
MR Yes, Tarik, and thanks to Maria. I think Maria makes a very good point about Marburg, Ebola. We even had a much higher incidence of Lassa fever in the last number of months with multiple exportation events to different countries so we are dealing with this issue of origins being a much broader scientific issue, a much broader public health issue and understanding breaches of the animal/human interface is extremely important and that is the purpose do the strategic advisory group on origins.
That group will, as Maria said, also consider, analyse and assess the current status of knowledge around the origins of SARS-CoV-2 including the mission in China and the studies being carried out by Chinese colleagues that are ongoing as well as other data from other countries where there have been laboratory detections of at least early indications of possible infections in 2019 in other countries.
00:45:43
WHO is currently working with scientists in a number of countries to review that data and also working with our Chinese colleagues on the next steps in terms of China's scientific studies.
I think in terms of bringing everyone together on this, I think everyone is speaking to the idea of this being a scientific pursuit. Clearly tempers have been frayed over the last number of weeks. We're really working hard to ensure that everyone understands that the purpose here is to identify the origin of the virus. We need to get politics out of this.
The strategic advisory group on origins is an ideal way to do that; a science-based platform on which we have scientists from all over the world discussing that. Indeed we look forward to continuing to work with colleagues on the Chinese side to further explore any further studies that need to be carried out there and in other countries as the need arises.
So I'm confident that we can establish that process through the SAGO and I'm confident also that our colleagues in China are very much willing to co-operate on the scientific studies that are needed to further explore the origins.
00:46:58
I think what's happened in all of this is that the politics have really contaminated the environment and changed the atmosphere and we're working very hard behind the scenes to increase the levels of confidence and to get people to recommit to the scientific process and I believe we're making headway in that although I have to admit that that has not been easy given some of the rhetoric that we've all experienced over the last number of weeks and months.
TJ Thank you, Dr Ryan. We have four minutes left before we close so we'll take one last, quick question from Carmen Pound from Politico please, very short. Carmen.
CA Thank you very much. I wanted to ask if the WHO has been in touch with any government officials from the countries that have decided to give booster shots and also from the US, which apparently will announce that, and also with the pharmaceutical companies to ask them to prioritise countries that don't have enough vaccines rather than countries that want to give boosters.
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And I wanted to see if the WHO could say what the responses have been from governments and from pharmaceutical companies. Thank you.
TJ Bruce.
BA Thanks, Tarik. Carmen, I think you know the answer to the question; absolutely and of course. For over a year now we've been in almost day-to-day contact with all of the major vaccine manufacturers, many countries; high-income countries, low-income countries but especially countries that are either producing vaccines or have contracted large amounts of it, to have exactly the conversations and discuss the issues that you frequently ask about on these calls.
So yes, we do have these conversations and the points we make are acknowledged if not necessarily agreed but be assured that, as frank as we are with you on these calls, we tend to be even franker when we talk to people in a less public situation.
TJ Thank you very much, Dr Aylward. With this we will conclude today's press briefing. The audio file will be sent shortly and the transcript will be available tomorrow morning. With this I give the floor to Dr Tedros for his final remarks. Dr Tedros.
TAG Thank you. Thank you, Tarik. I would just like to thank our media colleagues for joining us; thank you so much and look forward to having you in our upcoming presser. Thank you.
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