COVID-19 Virtual Press conference transcript - 16 April 2021
Overview
00:00:24
CL Hello
and good day to wherever you are listening to us today. It's Friday 16th
April and for us at least it's an unusual hour to have this press briefing so
thank you anyway for joining us at this time. My name is Christian Lindmeier
and I'm welcoming you to today's global COVID-19 press conference.
We have a few special guests today who I would
like to briefly announce as we will discuss the impact of COVID-19 in Papua New
Guinea and the Western Pacific region and the actions that are being taken
there to respond. First and foremost we have the Honourable Jelta Wong, the
Minister of Health in Papua New Guinea.
We have Dr Takeshi Kasai, the WHO Regional
Director for the Western Pacific. We have Ms Anna Maalsen, the Acting
Representative for WHO in Papua New Guinea. Welcome. Simultaneous
interpretation is provided in the six official UN languages as usual, Arabic,
Chinese, French, English, Spanish and Russian, plus we have Portuguese and
Hindi.
Now let me introduce the participants in the
room. Of course we have Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. We
have Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead on COVID-19. We have Dr Mariangela
Simao, Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products.
We have Dr Bruce Aylward, Special Advisor to the Director-General and the lead
on the ACT Accelerator and we will be joined by Dr Mike Ryan and Dr Soumya
Swaminathan later.
00:02:03
With this let me start differently because we
have journalists from the Western Pacific online. Just a note to everybody; in
case you want to get in line for questions please use the raise your hand icon
on your screen in order to get into the queue for questions. Now I hand over to
the Director-General for the opening remarks. Apologies.
TAG Thank
you. Thank you, Christian. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
Around the world cases and deaths are continuing to increase at worrying rates.
Globally the number of new cases per week has nearly doubled over the past two
months. This is approaching the highest rate of infection that we have seen so
far during the pandemic.
Some countries that had previously avoided
widespread transmission are now seeing steep increases in infections. One of
those countries is Papua New Guinea. Until the beginning of this year Papua New
Guinea had reported fewer than 900 cases and just nine deaths.
00:03:18
It has now reported more than 9,300 cases and 82
deaths. While these numbers are still smaller than other countries the increase
is sharp and WHO is very concerned about the potential for a much larger
epidemic.
There is large-scale community transmission in
the capital, Port Moresby, and the Western province and all 22 provinces have
now reported cases although in the last two weeks we have seen some decline.
Roll-out of the AstraZeneca vaccine started in late March with 8,000 doses
donated by Australia and a further 132,000 doses from COVAX arrived this week.
The vaccine is being offered first to priority
groups including health workers to protect the local health system. Through
WHO's global outbreak alert and response network or GOARN 13 experts have been
deployed to support the government with case management, epidemiology,
infection prevention and control, laboratory support and information
management.
Emergency medical teams from Australia, Germany
and the United States have also arrived to support the response with others
expected in the coming weeks.
00:04:45
WHO is continuing to work closely with the
National Department of Health and partners to provide technical advice and
support and to boost local health response capacity. This includes an emphasis
on expanding testing.
Papua New Guinea is a perfect example of why
vaccine equity is so important. It has held COVID-19 at bay for so long but
with rising infections, understandable fatigue with social restrictions, low
levels of immunity among the population and a fragile health system it's vital
that it receives more vaccines as soon as possible.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank
Australia for donating vaccines to Papua New Guinea and also my discussions
with the Foreign Minister of Australia, who has expressed full support to Papua
New Guinea.
00:05:48
Today I am pleased to welcome Papua New Guinea's
Minister of Health, the Honourable Jelta Wong. Minister, thank you for your
leadership at this difficult time for your nation and thank you so much for
taking the time to join us today. You have the floor, Minister.
JW Thank
you very much, Dr Tedros. Good day, everyone. Greetings from Papua New Guinea.
Thank you for this opportunity to share our situation here in Papua New Guinea,
a land of some eight million people and 800 different languages nestled in the
Western Pacific region or, we simply say, among the Pacific Islands.
My name is Jelta Wong. I am the Minister of
Health in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea's infection rate continues to rise
rapidly and as a responsible Government it is our duty to make vaccines
available to our people who need them the most.
As of 12:00pm on 15th April 2021
Papua New Guinea has reported 9,343 confirmed cases of COVID-19 including over
80 deaths. Half of these cases and half of these deaths were reported in the
last month alone, highlighting the large-scale community transmission in our
capital city, the national capital district and four other provinces, East New
Britain, Eastern Islands Province, Western Islands Province, Morobe and the
Western Province.
00:07:34
Out of these numbers we have increasing numbers
of health workers, about 273 out of 4,504 in the last month, who were infected
and we are expecting to see these numbers rise.
Our immediate priority is to protect our health
workers and our key workers in the front line. This prompted my Government to
reach out to our neighbour, Australia, for an emergency supply of vaccines
ahead of our COVAX supply.
Australia has responded immediately, allowing us
to begin roll-out of 8,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine sent in late March. To
date we have had about 1,600 persons vaccinated in our national capital
district. Thanks to the COVAX facility Papua New Guinea has received its first
batch of 132,000 AstraZeneca vaccines earlier this week. We are truly grateful.
With support from WHO and UNICEF we are
preparing to roll out this nation-wide by May. The vaccines will be distributed
to all provinces, initially targeting our healthcare workers and other
front-line essential workers.
Through the COVAX facility a total of 588,000
doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be made available to Papua New Guineans.
We hope to receive all this by June. To support the current surge we're facing
three more emergency medical teams arrived in the country over the last week to
help our health facilities with clinical management.
00:09:26
This was made possible with the co-ordination
and support of WHO. We still have many challenges but we have made some
significant progress in the response. Measures have been introduced including
mask-wearing, social distancing, restrictions on travel, mass gatherings and
passenger limits on public transport.
However we know that there are ongoing
challenges with compliance. We did not expect this to happen overnight. We
continue to work to address this. Our biggest challenge is seemingly the late
adoption or acceptance of the new normal and the disbelief in the disease
itself.
This overlaps into much infodemic and
conspiracies and misinformation on the safety and the efficiency of the
vaccines. To overcome this vaccine hesitancy especially among our health workforce
our Prime Minister, the Honourable James Marbe, our Governor-General, our Chief
Justice, our Cardinal, together with myself and our other leaders... to send a
strong statement from our country's leadership that the COVID-19 vaccines are
safe and will also help protect our people.
00:10:50
It is this Government's desire to ensure that no
Papua New Guinean is left behind and we ensure to get every message; with the
help of WHO, UNICEF and our foreign partners we are ensuring... to make sure
that everyone is vaccinated.
Again, Dr Tedros, your helping getting us the
first batch of the AstraZeneca through the COVAX facility and Tekashi-san,
thank you very much. Our country is in a much better place knowing that these
vaccines are now in country and it is now our job to make sure that the people
are reliably informed and start taking the vaccine so we can allow people to
travel overseas and allow them to live longer lives. Thank you very much and
God bless.
TAG Thank
you. Thank you so much, Minister, and thank you also to the Prime Minister,
thank you for everything you're doing. Please rest assured of WHO's total
support for your Government and your people at this difficult time.
00:12:18
I know that we have a very dedicated and skilled
country office in Papua New Guinea and it's now my pleasure to welcome WHO's
Acting Representative in Papua New Guinea, Anna Maalsen. Anna, thank you for
joining us and please tell us about the challenges you face and the steps that
WHO is taking to address them. You have the floor, Anna.
AM Thank
you, DG, Dr Tedros. Greetings to you all from Papua New Guinea. As both our WHO
Director-General and Health Minister Wong have indicated the situation in Papua
New Guinea is critical. We're seeing infection rates climb and there's intense
transmission of COVID-19 in parts of PNG, putting enormous pressure on
hospitals, intensive care units, health workers and communities.
The increasing number of healthcare worker
infections are cause for concern and this will already have an impact on PNG's
small and ageing workforce. This will directly impact the number of healthcare
workers available to provide care for people needing essential services, making
it difficult for hospitals to maintain those as well as cope with the increased
demands placed on the health system by the growing COVID-19 rates.
Long turn-around times for PCR testing have
impacted on the country's ability to respond quickly. However the nation-wide
roll-out of the rapid point-of-care antigens test is really a game-changer for
the country as we're able to roll these out and expand these to facilities in
much of rural Papua New Guinea.
00:14:03
This low-cost new technology is really a boost
to the country's ability to detect cases and respond appropriately to reduce transmission.
This week, as already mentioned, the arrival of
132 doses of AstraZeneca from the COVAX facility this week combined with the
8,000 gifted by Australia means that healthcare workers are now being or will
be vaccinated as a first priority to reduce the risk of COVID-19 and to
immediately address the challenges posed by the increasing healthcare worker
infections.
Together WHO with UNICEF continue to provide the
guidance and technical support to the Government of Papua New Guinea to ensure
safe vaccination with effective and quality vaccines. Advocacy efforts are
being fast-tracked. We're having to do this at the same time as training our
trainers for the roll-out of the vaccines.
00:15:02
We're doing this with new technology through
virtual trainings with our provincial health authorities and really ensuring
that our healthcare workers are confident and capable to administer the
vaccines in a safe way.
Putting together and supporting our provinces
with systems for tracking adverse events following immunisation is also a
critical part of our support right now as well as addressing the misinformation
through partnerships with social media platforms to address the existing
vaccine hesitancy.
In response to the Government's request for
support in clinical care and case management, as already mentioned, we've
deployed or supported the deployment of three emergency medical teams that have
arrived in country. We have Ausmat, the Australian team that are here based in
the national capital district, in the National Referral Hospital.
From the US team, Rubicon, who've travelled to
Mount Hagen in the Western Highlands, one of the most populous areas of the
country... And from Germany we have Johanita, who is working with St John's
here at the Nightingale COVID care centre in the national capital district.
00:16:17
If the needs escalate in other areas teams may
be retasked or redeployed to provide search support to other provinces.
Supporting that clinical management and care pathway is a really important part
of our support.
PNG is also seeing countries reach out with
much-needed PPE and supplies including oxygen concentrators and biomedical
equipment to support the quality of care. WHO is supporting the scale-up of
sustainable oxygen systems as a critical part of the country's response, which
will have longer-lasting benefits for the health system.
WHO will continue to support the PNG Government
and work with the National Department of Health, the National Control Centre
and other development partners to boost and strengthen the local capacity
across the country to ensure that Papua New Guinea has access to safe
vaccination and to suppress the current outbreak and slow the spread of
COVID-19 in Papua New Guinea. Thank you very much.
00:17:19
TAG Thank
you. Thank you, Anna, and thank you for everything you and your team are doing.
I send my greetings to the whole team there. You make us very proud. Papua New
Guinea is one of 37 countries in WHO's Western Pacific region. Although the
first cases of COVID-19 were reported from the Western Pacific the region still
has the fewest cases and deaths of WHO's six regions.
Many of its countries have applied lessons
learned from past experience with infectious disease outbreaks like SARS, MERS
and influenza and have been strong examples of how COVID can be contained with
proven public health measures.
Cases are now increasing sharply in Papua New
Guinea and some other countries in the region. The trajectory is worrying and
the situation is fragile. To tell us more it's my honour to introduce the
Regional Director of the Western Pacific, Dr Takeshi Kasai.
My brother, Takeshi, thank you so much to you
and your team in Manila and in each of your 37 countries for everything you
continue to do to serve the people of the Western Pacific. Thank you so much
for your leadership. You have the floor, Takeshi.
TK Thank
you very much, DG, and good morning, good afternoon and good evening. I really
appreciate the opportunity to highlight the situation of Papua New Guinea and
the Pacific more broadly to the global media.
00:18:57
Our region is home to around one-quarter of the
world's population but so far we have been relatively fortunate in this
COVID-19 pandemic. We have recorded just 1.6% of the global confirmed COVID-19
cases and 1.2% of confirmed deaths.
In fact some countries in the Pacific are among
the small number of countries in the world which are yet to record a single
COVID-19 case. There's no single or simple reason as to why our region has
fared comparatively well but long-term investment is one key factor.
Countries have spent more than a decade
preparing for events with pandemic potential by strengthening preparedness and
response capacity including the public health system such as contract tracing.
00:20:02
But, as Dr Tedros said, several countries in the
region including Papua New Guinea are now experiencing surges in cases. The
pandemic means that every corner of every country in every part of the world
must be prepared and protected against COVID-19 and we must continue to pay special
attention to small countries who have so far been able to stop the virus coming
in. In remote Pacific countries even a few cases could have a devastating
impact.
As we heard from the earlier speakers, the
COVID-19 situation in Papua New Guinea is extremely challenging right now. I
really want to recognise the efforts of the Papua New Guinea Government under
the leadership of Prime Minister Marape, Health Minister Wong and COVID-19
Response Controller, David Manning.
They have been bringing together all of the
Government and different sectors and as much as possible trying to get ahead of
the curve by strengthening response capacity in all provinces across the
country.
I would also like to thank all partners, in
particular Australia, for their very, very strong support including helping to
get international [?] emergency medical teams on the ground and securing vital
supplies of vaccine.
00:21:49
WHO is also working side-by-side with our UN
colleagues, especially UNICEF and I would especially like to acknowledge the
strong support of the UN resident co-ordinator. I'd like to make a couple more
quick points before closing about the vaccines.
It was wonderful to see more vaccines arriving
in Papua New Guinea from COVAX this week but there are still countries in the
Pacific which are yet to receive any vaccines or have only received very few
doses and I couldn't agree more with the DG's point about vaccine equity.
At the same time it is important to emphasise
that vaccine alone will not end the Papua New Guinea outbreak or the pandemic,
not yet. Because [unclear] our best defence until the majority of people in
every country are vaccinated is still to keep up with all the other protective
behaviours we know work, including strong enforcement of non-pharmaceutical
donations, as Honourable Minister Wong mentioned.
WHO continues to support the Papua New Guinea
Government and calls on the entire PNG populations to keep up with [unclear].
Do everything you can to fight the virus and stay safe. Thank you very much,
DG, for this opportunity.
00:23:28
TAG Thank
you. Thank you so much, Takeshi, and my greetings to all of our colleagues in
the regional office. We're very proud to serve with you. I'm glad that today we
have been able to showcase the incredible capacity of WHO to provide support on
the ground in countries at the regional level and here at headquarters.
At the global level we continue to assess the
evolution of the pandemic and to adjust our advice accordingly. Under the
International Health Regulations the emergency committee held its seventh
meeting yesterday and I look forward to receiving its advice on Monday.
Globally our message to all people in all
countries remains the same; we all have a role to play in ending the pandemic.
Christian, back to you.
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Tedros. Thank you very much to all of you. We'll start the
round of questions and again if you want to be put in the queue please raise
your hand with the raise your hand icon on the screen. I'm very glad to be
calling upon a journalist from the Western Pacific region as I see here on the
screen that's Johnny Blades from Radio NZ Pacific. Johnny, please unmute
yourself.
00:24:46
JO Thank
you. Kia ora from New Zealand. I hope you can all hear me. Thanks to the
panellists for making time to address us all on this very pressing situation. I
just have a question for Health Minister, Mr Wong.
Given the challenges that you've mentioned and
others as well, challenges with the disbelief in the virus in PNG, vaccine
hesitancy and the significant logistical challenges of getting doses and teams
out to the various parts of your country, how can the Government expect to get
anything near a majority of people vaccinated in PNG, is it possible?
CL Thank
you very much for this question, Johnny. I'll hand over to the Honourable
Minister.
JW [Inaudible],
Johnny, but thank you for your question. It's a good question. Since COVID-19
has been announced to the world we've always had a group of people that have
been against believing in it. Slowly with the resources we've received from WHO
and UNICEF and the information that we've got we've translated and tried to
push it out to every single province using our PHA systems.
00:26:27
The vaccine is not the first vaccine that we've
ever pushed around the country. We've had different types of vaccines and we
held a meeting to roll it out and we've had a lot of support from outside on
how to move logistically through the provinces and then to allow the provinces
to take over and make sure that the people get vaccinated.
From the dialogue that we get back from the
provinces a lot more people in the provinces have come forward wanting to be
vaccinated so the messaging is getting out there and every day... It's not
going to be easy but it's something that we're going to have to work towards to
ensure a safer Papua New Guinea.
As a responsible Government we must have these
plans in place to ensure that our people are safe.
CL Thank
you very much, Honourable Minister. With this we move to the next and it's Corinne
Gretler from Bloomberg. Corinne, please unmute yourself.
CO Hi.
Thanks for taking my question. I know you're tracking various variants but I
wanted to ask you about the B1617 variant that's emerging in India. I think it
was first detected in October but it's now appeared in other countries around
the world and it's being linked to why the wave in India appears to be more
severe this time around.
00:28:16
So I just wanted to hear your latest; what's
your current assessment of it, have you heard more chatter about it, and maybe
just talk about it a little bit more.
CL Thank
you very much, Corinne. Let me hand to Dr Van Kerkhove.
MK Thanks
very much for the question. This virus variant is a variant of interest, the
B1617 lineage. This was first detected and reported by India, having two
mutations; the E484Q and the L452R; those are specific mutations within the
genome.
This was reported by scientists out of India.
They actually presented to us at our virus evolution working group on Monday,
giving us some information about the studies that are underway and working in
collaboration across the country but also with scientists around the world.
00:29:07
It was first seen in two states at the end of
2020 and there is an increasing proportion of cases of this B617 that have
increased since the end of last year. As you know, these virus variants... The
virus mutates, the virus changes over time. This is one variant of interest
that we are following.
Having two of these mutations which have been
seen in other variants around the world is concerning because there is a
similarity in these mutations which confer increased transmissibility for
example and some of these mutations also result in reduced neutralisation,
which may have an impact on our countermeasures including the vaccines.
What we are doing is working with India and
working with countries around the world to make sure that we increase the
proportion of sequencing that is happening around the world but making sure
that this is intelligent sequencing so that we can detect where these variants
of interest and these variants of concern are.
But also linking with the sequences
epidemiologic information, clinical information so that they can be studied
properly. Variants with certain mutations do mean that it can spread more
easily which means that if it spreads more easily you will have more cases and
if you have more cases it will put more burden on your health system.
00:30:29
So this is one of the ones that we are tracking.
It is one of the ones that's on our radar and in doing so it means it's on the
radar of people around the world. But we have a system in place and I think
what is important is that WHO with partners is bringing together member states,
researchers, different networks around the world to make sure that we have a
robust monitoring and assessment framework.
So it's not just important to say that there's a
variant of interest that's been detected. It's really important that that
assessment is robust so we understand what each variant of interest and variant
of concern means for transmission, for severity and for impacts on diagnostics,
therapeutics and vaccines.
00:31:12
That system is being strengthened around the
world because right now the variants that have been detected; the vaccines still
work against these variants of concern, against severe disease and death and
that's really, really important.
But we want to have a system in place should
there need to be a change in some of our countermeasures going forward and so
this is one of the ones that we are looking at, this is one of the ones that we
are tracking. Indeed it has been reported in other countries across Asia,
across North America but it is something we need better sequencing to better
determine where it is circulating.
So this is one of the ones that is on our radar
in addition to the B117, the variant that was first identified in the United
Kingdom, the B1351, which is the variant that was first detected in South
Africa, and the P1 variant that was first detected in Japan but is circulating
in Brazil and in a number of other countries.
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Van Kerkhove. The next goes to Catherine Fiancan from France
24. Catherine, please unmute yourself.
CA Good
morning. Thank you, Christian. Good morning to all of you. My questions are
addressed to the Minister of Health, the Honourable Jelta Wong, regarding the
situation in his country. I'd like to know what are the major... because he
spoke about major challenges; if he could elaborate a little bit more about
that.
00:32:43
And I would like to ask him also if they have a
TB outbreak over there and how do they organise fighting it and do they have
enough PPE and tests and also if they're helped by China, if he could confirm
or not, and how he explains the sudden rise in cases. Are there imported cases
or is it just an expansion of the cases due to a lack of restrictions at the
beginning? Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much, Catherine, for this one question. Let me hand over to the
Honourable Minister, please.
JW Thank
you very much for your question. Yes, when we first started the lock-downs,
when we first got the word that COVID-19 was spreading through the countries
and coming towards Papua New Guinea we put some measures in place which were
very extreme.
We locked down the whole country for 14 days to
stop the movement. At the time the word was from everyone, all our donor
partners and everybody that the virus moves with people moving so we tried to
stop the movement of people.
00:34:22
When we did that we were successful in holding
down the numbers. Unfortunately through the end of 2020 we started to feel
complacent where our people started to think because our numbers were so low
that COVID-19 wasn't in our country.
So as everywhere else in the world when they
have Christmas, Papua New Guinea is no different. A lot of people move out of
the city back to the villages and to the provinces to meet with their families
and the lack of the measures at the time - because when we opened it back up we
allowed a lot of movement back into the country and it caught us off-guard.
Within that Christmas a lot of people were meeting and it blew up in that
sense.
It also didn't help that I was taken to another
Ministry because the numbers were down so when we started to feel a surge was
coming back and we'd taken hold of the Government I was put back into the
Health Minister's position to revitalise the NCC to ensure that we weren't
complacent any more.
Our control was put in place and we tried to do
the measures the same again but not as strict as we did before. By that time we
realised that the community transmission had escalated in such a way that the
hospitals were inundated with patients but we've covered the surge.
00:36:24
At the start we weren't doing too well. We were scrambling
around trying to ensure that we created hubs where people can go and isolate
within their own suburbs or within their own villages. That helped us a bit but
we also had the backing of WHO and other donor countries where they sent EMTs
from their countries to come and help us work in this emergency situation where
complacency in ourselves was the biggest object to why the COVID surge was so
big in that time.
But as we go through the last couple of weeks
the numbers have been slowly declining and with the introduction of the vaccine
it's given us a feeling that once we take over the vaccine it gives time for
our people to start moving information out to the villages and saying that the
vaccine is working.
We've had some personal interactions, not scientifically.
I'm not a doctor but I personally took the vaccine about three weeks ago. My
wife had COVID-19; she was tested positive and I had very small interaction
with her within that time. I came out of it and I'd been tested on the day that
they said that I went home and a couple of days later when they said the
incubation period and all this.
00:38:26
I got tested all through that time and I came
out negative. There are more stories like this happening within my country and
a lot of people are putting it out now and word of mouth is spreading that the
vaccine is there to ensure that people don't get sick.
So I'm a big believer in the vaccine and the use
of the policies and the stuff that we're putting together to roll out the
vaccine will allow us to ensure that people get vaccinated across the country.
As I said, I was appreciative to WHO for
organising EMTs from other countries to come. This also gives our health
workers a bit of training, allowing them to learn from the best from other countries.
CL Thank
you so much, Honourable Minister, and also for your personal account there. Let
me hand now to Ms Anna Maalsen, WHO Acting Representative in Papua New Guinea.
00:39:47
AM Thank
you. Thank you for your questions. Papua New Guinea is a very challenging
country to deliver health services. For many years the PNG Government and the
development partners along with WHO have been really working to strengthen the
health system but unfortunately the health system in Papua New Guinea is
impacted by many shocks.
In 2018 we had a significant earthquake. Across
the latter part of 2018 and 19 the country was responding to a polio outbreak
and we continue to have the communicable disease burden, the drug-resistant
tuberculosis, malaria, HIV and maternal and child health and it's a constant
pressure on the system.
But a system that has just over 15,000
healthcare workers for a population of 8.5 million in a very geographically
challenging country, from the mountains to the oceans and limited road networks
and delivery networks to get services across the country.
Also the challenge of delivery is impacted by a
highly decentralised health system. We have 22 provincial health authorities
across the country. It's a really important reform that brings the hospital and
rural and primary healthcare services together under one management structure.
00:41:17
However it's been a rolling reform over the last
ten years and at the time of COVID-19 and when that arrived in Papua New Guinea
the national capital district had only just transitioned to a new provincial
health authority so were trying to respond to a pandemic at the same time as
almost setting up a new governance system to deliver healthcare.
All of these things together make it really
challenging and as a country office here immediately we repurposed our staff to
help respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. But over time we've been able to recruit
and draw on our many global experts, particularly through the global outbreak
and response network, GOARN.
We have a separate incident management team now
supporting the response, which means our core country office staff can continue
to support the other critical essential health services and programmes so
continuing that support to TB, to maternal and child health so we can really
leverage and continue that support across the country.
We're also supporting the country with the
genome sequencing so that goes through the laboratories in Singapore and also
to the Doherty Institute in Australia.
00:42:42
So far there are no variants of concern really
that have emerged here and those border protection measures that the Government
have put in as a critical part and the quarantine and the point of entry
requirements in trying to minimise the risk of importation of any of those variants
of concern. Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much, Anna. I'll move to Akiko Uala from Swiss Info. Akiko, please
unmute yourself.
AK Morning.
I have a question for Director-General Dr Tedros and also Dr Kasai, Director of
the Western Pacific Regional Office and Head of the World Health Assembly. It's
about information sharing. What measures or reforms do you think the WHO should
implement to co-operate better for information sharing between the regional
office and WHO and also between the regional office and member states in
preparation for future pandemics? Thank you.
00:43:51
CL Thank
you very much, Akiko. Let me hand to Dr Kasai, WHO Regional Director for the
Western Pacific.
TK Thank
you very much, Akiko, for that question. Let me start in this way; headquarters
and the regional office and the country office work as one so under this
COVID-19 since January 1st 2020 the three levels have been connected
and responding together.
We had this system in an informal way but it's
become much more systematic as a result of the lessons identified and learned
from the Ebola response where we established one programme for WHO emergency
programmes led by Dr Mike Ryan under the very strong leadership of the DG.
WHO and member states; first and foremost we
have a country office within the member states and through the country office
we have really regular communications. We're working almost together.
In the regional office from time to time we
organise regular information sharing with a group of people set up in the member
states called international health regulations focal point and also our
technical persons who are connected with the technical people in the subject
matter. For example surveillance people would be connected with the
surveillance group in the country, member state and they work together.
00:45:33
Of course from time to time I reach out to the
Ministers in these member states. I'm also happy to report and always
appreciate the headquarters also trying to reach out at the global level to all
the member states under the leadership of the Director-General.
What I have learned from this information
sharing is obviously information about the virus is very important but equally
the information sharing of the experience of response is so important.
Countries can learn from each other, from other countries' experience and
through that we've been responding to COVID-19 as we learn and continue to
improve.
Obviously these kind of things cannot be done
without the preparation so it's actually very important that we invest during
peacetime. Our region has taken this issue very seriously since SARS in 2003
and we've been working together with the member states to connect each other
ourselves to be ready for this pandemic.
00:46:45
Now there's ongoing a lot of evaluations, a
review of our response and member states' response and I understand that will
be reported on by the coming World Health Assembly in May. I really wanted to
work together with the DG and Dr Mike Ryan to make sure those recommendations
would go through with the member states and the outcome of the discussions with
member states would be reflected in further improving this information sharing
within the WHO and between WHO and member states. Thank you very much for that
question.
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Kasai. I see Dr Mike Ryan wants to come in on this. Let me
see if we can connect him. Dr Mike Ryan, please.
MR Thanks,
Christian. My greetings to Takeshi and all the team in WPR and to our team on
the ground in PNG. Takeshi-san outlined it very, very well. We are a learning
organisation, continuous learning, systematic learning before, during and after
our responses.
Particularly during responses we have constant
operational reviews, intra-action reviews and in fact have helped many
countries carry out their own intra-action reviews, as Takeshi has alluded to
so learning during and learning after.
00:48:16
Right now we have a number of processes. As you
know, we have the IHR review committee, we have the IPP VR, we have the global
preparedness monitoring board and we have the independent advisory and
oversight committee that works to oversee the operations of the emergency
programme inside WHO. I can assure you that we're constantly learning.
I would though like to pay tribute to Takeshi
and his leadership and the region and the team at regional level in the Western
Pacific region. They've been absolutely superb throughout this outbreak and
have offered support to a huge range of countries which range from very small
Pacific islands to highly industrialised and populated states.
It's a challenging and demanding remit and
providing operational, technical, epidemiologic and clinical services to
countries, as you see with Papua New Guinea now receiving a huge array of
support from the international community and again recognising the role
particularly that Australia has played as a very strong partner in supporting
much of that activity as well.
00:49:19
So the question is well asked; I think we do
have to look at how information moves in the system both before, during and
after outbreaks. We need to get better at prediction. We need to bring together
better data. The data exists out there. We have so much data. Our problem is
getting access to it, organising that data in the right way, having the right
analytic tools and platforms to do that and building the communities of
practice so that each user in the system from the front-line primary healthcare
worker all the way through to global epidemiologists and modellers have access
to data in real time at the right time before, during and after epidemics.
This is going to be a major challenge going
forward. We have not invested enough in this function, we have not invested
enough in accessing, managing and using data to prevent, to respond to and to
recover from pandemics. This is a major focus for WHO going forward and I'm
sure the Director-General will be outlining that further and we know the member
states are really interested and pushing very hard for a fundamental increase
in investment in local, national and global surveillance, data sharing, the
sharing of biological materials so we can all do better in future in response
to global threats like this. DG.
00:50:43
CL Thank
you very much. This was Dr Mike Ryan, Executive Director for WHO's Health
Emergencies Programme and we'll have the Director-General to add.
TAG Thank
you so much. I think Takeshi and Mike have said everything so I don't have
anything to add except to thank them and as was said, we will continue to make
the system really robust because information is the basis and that's how we can
beat the current one and also prepare for the future. It's a learning
organisation and we will continue to learn and improve our system. Thank you.
CL Thank
you all so much. We just have time for one more question and this goes to
Marian Benitez from the Hong Kong standard. Marian, please unmute yourself.
MA Hello,
can you hear me?
CL Yes,
please go ahead.
00:51:42
MA I'd
like to ask you, with this virus spreading even though it's not in PNG but in
other countries as well in Asia Pacific, do you think there is hope for a
vaccine passport that some countries have been discussing with other countries,
like Hong Kong and Singapore are doing now? What is the WHO position on that?
Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much, Marian. Let me look at Dr Van Kerkhove or... Dr Soumya
Swaminathan, please.
SS Thank
you. I can start and I'm sure Dr Ryan would like to add because this is a topic
obviously which has been coming up from time to time and we've heard about
various initiatives or ideas that countries have proposed. The basic concept of
course is that people want to get back to travelling safely; they want to get
back to their business travel needs across countries and so on.
We need to look at this from the point of view
of the scientific rationale behind something like that as well as the other
implications which could be equity implications and ethical implications.
So for the scientific principle of a vaccine
passport I guess what is needed is something that tells you that you are not
infected and you're unlikely to infect other people if you're travelling. I
think that's the basis.
00:53:20
So some countries have proposed not only
immunisation but also, as currently is needed to travel, a molecular test, a
PCR test which is negative before you can get on at least an international
flight. An antibody test could be another way of showing whether you're
protected or not but we haven't got to the point where we have established
criteria for antibody levels for example that are protective.
In fact we know that vaccines do not protect
100% against infection even though they're very effective against severe
disease and hospitalisation. All the vaccines tested so far have been highly
efficacious but we're still getting data about the efficacy against infection,
asymptomatic infection or infection with very mild symptoms.
Some vaccines are showing that they do protect
against infection but maybe to the extent of 70 or 80% so we cannot take it for
granted that just because somebody's vaccinated that they are absolutely not
going to be infected and therefore not be a risk to others so that's the first
scientific fact and we're learning more about protection after natural
infection, protection after vaccination and this will continue to evolve.
00:54:37
The second very important issue of course is
that we've seen currently and the Director-General has repeatedly underlined
the inequitable situation of vaccines around the world just now. We heard from
PNG as well the need; a population of over eight million and the supplies that
they have currently will be enough just to protect the most high-risk and
vulnerable groups.
Many countries; we know that while some
countries have vaccinated over 30, 40% of their adult populations others have
barely reached 1% or even less; many countries are at even less than that.
So this is not something that can be applied
globally right now; it's just not possible because not enough people have had
the vaccine and of course this is going to change; it's going to get better and
as the year goes on hopefully much larger proportions of people across the
world will have access to vaccination.
00:55:31
So at this point the emergency committee also is
the committee that advises WHO on travel regulations and we are waiting for the
latest guidance from the meeting that was just held but the position will
continue to evolve as the science evolves. But at this point we have to be
really very careful when we discuss the idea of the vaccine passport and what
exactly we mean when we talk about the vaccine passport.
If it's a record and what we are recommending is
that all individuals who get vaccines have a record. This can be a digital
record and we have produced the technical standards for what this record looks
like; a smart vaccination card or a digital card, move from paper to digital.
That's good for everyone; it's good for
countries' and systems' immunisation programmes and it's also good for
individuals who don't have to carry a paper around with them but that's very
different from making it mandatory for someone to have a certificate in order
to travel. That's where the problems really start coming up and we have to
think very carefully about it. Thanks. I don't know if Mike wants to add, or
the DG.
00:56:47
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Swaminathan. We'll have Dr Mike Ryan, please.
MR I
think Soumya covered it extremely well. I think Soumya said something very
significant there; we want people to keep a record of vaccination and we want
countries to keep a record of who they vaccinate so having a record in paper
terms or in a booklet or a digital record on your phone of your vaccination
status is good for you, that's good for your health and it's good for the
authorities to know who's been vaccinated in any given country for planning
purposes.
That's very different to what that document or
what that certificate is then used for. Is that document going to be used so
you can access or not access your workplace or access or not access
international travel or access or not access university education?
That raises many issues, as Soumya said; ethical
issues, equity issues as well and they do need to be considered, especially in
a world where vaccine is distributed in such a grossly inequitous way.
The other issue here is that a vaccination card
does not necessarily tell you anything other than a vaccine has been
administered and we know these vaccines are highly effective and therefore
having a vaccination card is very likely to represent your immunity.
00:58:03
But, as Soumya said, not necessarily preventing
you from transmitting the disease although the evidence is growing that it has
a big impact. But there's also your immunity status; we've heard this before;
your antibodies. You could have had a natural infection and have antibodies
even though you weren't vaccinated.
Currently many of us are subjected to infection
tests, antigen tests, rapid tests and PCR tests. They test whether you actually
have the virus up your nose or in your respiratory tract or not so there are
different types of tests for your infection status, your immunity status and
your vaccination status.
All of that does need to be brought together
into a more coherent framework so this information can be used by individuals
and governments but used properly and with proper moral and ethical
considerations.
00:58:52
The emergency committee has been considering
their advice around the use of vaccination certification as a prerequisite for
travel and they will be advising the DG in the coming hours and days as to whether
their previous advice would change at this point.
Their previous advice up to their meeting
yesterday was, they advised that certification of vaccination should not be
used as a prerequisite for international travel but they said they would keep
that under review and they have been reviewing that again yesterday. Thank you.
CL Thank
you very much, Dr Ryan. With this we are coming to the end of today's session
on COVID-19. I'll ask the Honourable Minister of Papua New Guinea, Jelta Wong,
for any closing remarks, please.
Honourable Minister, you seem to be muted.
JW Thank
you, Christian. On behalf of my Government of Papua New Guinea I want to thank
WHO, Anna Maalsen and her team, Takeshi-san and his team in the Philippines, in
Manila and especially to the Director-General for your continued support for
our country.
01:00:30
Even though we still have a long way to go we
still work on trying to get all our health programmes in place. It's only been
a year when we've really sat down and had a closer look at our health system
and we're using COVID to ensure that we build a bigger, better health system
within our country.
Your support has been very much appreciated
through the years and I hope going into the future that we start to build a
relationship that will build lasting infrastructure as well as keeping the
world safe by helping and always being with you all. We really appreciate it
and goodnight.
CL Thank
you so much, Honourable Minister. Let me thank the guests, the Honourable
Minister, Jelta Wong, Minister of Health of Papua New Guinea, Dr Takeshi Kasai,
WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, and Ms Anna Maalsen, the Acting
Representative for WHO in Papua New Guinea.
Before I hand over to the Director-General for
closing remarks let me remind you we'll be sending you the audio files and Dr
Tedros' remarks right after this press briefing. The full transcript will be
posted tomorrow on WHO's website. For any further questions please don't
hesitate to contact mediaenquiries@who.int. Dr Tedros, the floor is yours.
01:02:10
TAG Thank
you. Thank you very much, Christian. Takeshi, if you have any closing remarks,
please. Then I will say a few words after you.
TK Thanks,
DG. Just one more; really thank you very much for the opportunity to share the information
on Papua New Guinea and also the Pacific broadly. Thank you very much.
TAG Thank
you, Takeshi, arigato gozaimasu and thank you, Your Excellency, Minister Jelta
Wong for joining us today. We're in this together to end this pandemic and
also, Minister, as you said, to continue to work together to build
infrastructure, to build universal health coverage so I look forward to working
with you very, very closely and thank you also, Takeshi and Anna, for joining
us.
I would also like to thank the media for joining
us and all my colleagues here. I wish you all a nice weekend. Bon week-end.
01:03:19