COVID-19 Virtual Press conference transcript - 20 November 2020
Overview
COVID-19
Virtual Press conference
20 November 2020
Speaker key:
FC Fadela Chaib
TAG Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
SHW Sheikh Hasina Wazed
MM Mia Mottley
QD Qu Dongyu
ME Dr Monique Eloit
LA Laurent
CA Carmen
HB Professor Hanan Balkhy
AS Ashwin
HYG Dr Haileyesus Getahun
PR Priti
PE Peter
JD Dr Janet Diaz
SS Dr Soumya Swaminathan
MR Dr Michael Ryan
MS Dr Mariangela Simao
MK Dr Maria Van Kerkhove
JO John
MA Dr Matthew Stone
SI Simon
00:01:43
FC Hello, all. I am Fadela Chaib, speaking to you from WHO headquarters in Geneva and welcoming you to our global COVID-19 press conference today, Friday 20th November. As you may know, this week is World Antimicrobial Awareness Week. In addition to COVID-19 issues today's press briefing will have a special focus on the WHO [unclear] and OIE launch of the One Health Global Leaders' Group on Antimicrobial Resistance. Let me first introduce you to the WHO experts who are present with us or remotely.
Present in the room are the WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros, Dr Mike Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead for COVID-19, Dr Hanan Balkhy, Assistant Director-General, Antimicrobial Resistance, Dr Janet Diaz, Team Lead, Clinical Care for COVID-19 and Mr Derek Walton, Legal Counsel.
Joining us remotely are Dr Mariangela Simao, Assistant Director-General, Access to Medicines and Health Products and Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist. Also in the room is Dr Haileyesus Getahun. He's the Director for Global Coordination and Partnership, AMR Department. Now without further ado I would like to hand over to Dr Tedros for his opening remarks and to introduce our distinguished guests. Dr Tedros, you have the floor.
00:03:20
TAG Thank you, Fadela. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. More cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the past four weeks than in the first six months of the pandemic. Across Europe and North America hospitals and ICU units are filling up or full. This week there has been more good news from vaccine trials, which continues to give us hope of ending the pandemic.
At the same time we must continue to use the tools we have to interrupt the chains of transmission and save lives now. The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the intimate relationship between humans, animals and the planet we share. We cannot protect and promote human health without paying attention to the health of animals and the health of our environment.
That's nowhere more true than in the case of antimicrobial resistance, one of the greatest health threats of our time. Antimicrobial resistance may not seem as urgent as a pandemic but it is just as dangerous. It threatens to unwind a century of medical progress and leave us defenceless against infections that today can be treated easily.
Although antibiotics are a key focus antimicrobial resistance also includes resistance to medicines for HIV, malaria, neglected tropical diseases and more. Wednesday marked the start of World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, an annual opportunity to raise awareness of antimicrobial resistance and encourage best practices among the general public, health workers and policymakers to slow the development and spread of drug-resistant infections.
The slogan for 2020 is antimicrobials, handle with care. For years WHO has been working with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Organisation for Animal Health to address antimicrobial resistance and other health issues that arise from the interaction between humans and animals with a one health approach.
Our three organisations, called the tripartite, conduct regular surveys to monitor country progress on antimicrobial resistance. Our latest report with data from 136 countries shows that almost 90% of countries have national action plans for antimicrobial resistance but only 20% have identified funding for implementation.
00:06:27
To help address that gap together we have established a trust fund to support low and middle-income countries to develop a truly one-health approach to addressing antimicrobial resistance. Thanks to the Governments of the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom to date we have raised US$13 million which will provide the first round of support to 11 countries.
Just this week we have launched the implementation in Indonesia. Additional funds will be required for the next round of investment. Today the tripartite is launching a new report that examines the international instruments that govern the use of antimicrobials and identifies gaps in regulations for use of antimicrobials in humans, animals and plants.
Together our three organisations will work to address these gaps and generate more global coherence in the use of antimicrobials. One of the most important ways to do that is through increased political commitment at the highest levels of government.
00:07:43
That's why today we're launching the One Health Global Leaders' Group, which will bring together prominent leaders from government, the private sector and civil society organisations to advocate for urgent action to combat the threat of antimicrobial resistance.
The group will be co-chaired by Her Excellency, Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, and Her Excellency, Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados. The group will bring together key stakeholders in agriculture, health, development, food and feed production and other relevant areas to maintain urgency, public support, political momentum and visibility of the antimicrobial resistance challenge.
It's now my great honour to introduce the co-chair of the One Health Leaders' Group, Her Excellency, Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, to say a few words. Your Excellency, you have the floor and thank you so much for your commitment and support.
SHW Thank you very much. [Unclear], Her Excellency, Mia Mottley, Honourable Prime Minister of Barbados, Directors-General of the World Health Organization, WHO, Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO, and the World Organisation for Animal Health, OIA, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, As-Salaam-Alaikum and good afternoon to you all.
00:09:23
I am happy to join the launch event of the One Health Global Leaders' Group on Antimicrobial Resistance as a Co-Chair. I would like to thank the important tripartite partners, the WHO, World Health Organization, FAO, Food and Agriculture Organisation and OIE, World Organisation for Animal Health, for their initiative to establish this group for co-ordinated action and collective global governance to address the serious challenge of antimicrobial resistance.
As the co-chair of this initiative I look forward to working with my esteemed co-chair and the global leaders to combat the challenges for the health of people, animals and for safe food and crop production and risk [?] for the whole environment.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that antimicrobial resistance has become a global public health challenge both for humans and animals and injuring [?] food production and is leading us towards catastrophic results.
00:10:52
We are running out of available antibiotics and soon could face another global emergency more severe than the current COVID-19 pandemic. This menace has the potential of rolling back most of our medical and therapeutic successes achieved through scientific advancements over the ages [?].
Unnecessary use of antibiotics, wrong doses and overall poor infection prevention are causing this grave situation. Inspired by the WHO Global Action Plan in 2015 we, Bangladesh, formulated the National Action Plan for antimicrobial resistance containment 2017-2022 in Bangladesh.
This document and its associated roadmap speak about our governance policy, trust and commitment to address AMR. This is an important component of our efforts to ensure universal health for all in our country. Now we need worldwide, co-ordinated actions to monitor the nature of infections, to implement the required control methods and to raise global awareness against widespread use of antibiotics.
We should also ensure affordable access to new antibiotics by all. For this I also call for increased, internationally co-ordinated investment for more research for inventing a new generation of antibiotics.
00:13:05
Excellencies, prevention is better than cure so I would call upon the global leaders to make this timely initiative successful by providing advocacy, technical and financial support for effective implementation of the recommendations of the Inter-Agency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance to address the global antimicrobial resistance crisis.
I hope this Leaders' Group will be successful to mainstream this vital health issue in all our important discourses, contributing to the united global effort to fight the ominous development of antibiotic resistance. I thank you all.
TAG Thank you. Thank you so much, Your Excellency, Prime Minister Hasina. I would now like to introduce the other Co-Chair of the One Health Leaders' Group, Her Excellency, Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados. Your Excellency, thank you for your commitment and support and you have the floor.
MM Thank you very much, Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus and Your Excellency, Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Dr Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the FAO, Dr Monique Eloit, Director-General of the World Organisation for Animal Health.
00:14:43
My Government is honoured to be asked to co-chair the One Health Global Leaders' Group on this important area at a time when antimicrobial resistance has been identified as one of the signal threats to development over the next century. For us there are too many, from the climate crisis to the pandemic to this and therefore we've determined that we must face it head-on.
Antibiotics and similar drugs such as antifungals, antivirals and antimalarials, together called the antimicrobial agents, have been used, as you said, for a while and have threatened now, if we don't get this correct, to reverse a century of medical progress. The systematic misuse and overuse of these drugs in human medicine and food production have contributed to this rise in antimicrobial resistance or the ability of a microorganism to stop an antimicrobial from working against it.
In simple language, for us this threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections and is reducing our ability and the ability of health systems to protect vulnerable patients at the very time when we are more conscious of the need to protect all human beings as a result of this pandemic.
00:16:01
AMR also reduces our capability to protect the health of animals and therefore also threatens safe and sustainable agriculture. We have become so dependent on the availability as needed of effective antibiotics to cover surgery and childbirth as well as animal husbandry and other food production that with increasing antimicrobial resistance we face threats of the return to unsafe childbirth, increased illness and death through surgical procedures, re-emerging diseases such as tuberculosis or threats to food security and food safety as well as economic losses to countries and I would like to suggest, in our case in particular with the multiple existential threats that small states face, developmental regression.
All countries will be affected by this. Addressing it requires the acceptance that there must be an inter-sectoral issue that needs action across all sectors since it has resulted from activities within both human and animal health as well as in plant production and this approach therefore by the three organisations is heartening.
00:17:12
It requires a commitment to continued action within and across countries at all stages of development from the very developed to the developing countries. The formation of this group therefore for advocacy and advising on best practice is clearly an acknowledgement of these realities.
The goal of this group is to ensure that attention is kept on this important subject so that progress is shared. I must confess that at a personal level I first learnt about it a couple of years ago through a documentary and it just proves that we need to be able to speak to our people through multiple different media and not just from a scientific or a government policy perspective.
It is the awareness among our populations that will also place pressure on the systems to ensure that sufficient funds are invested in this area of research so as to ensure that we really do not reverse a century of medical progress. Like many other countries in the world Barbados completed a five-year national action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance using the One Health principles which share the goals and objectives of the global action plan on the same issue.
00:18:26
Since then the multisectoral steering committee has been conducting a stepwise implementation of the plans starting with the strengthening of infection prevention measures after a health facility audit and an antibiotic stewardship in the lone public tertiary care hospital in Barbados.
The focus on infection prevention has served us well for the preparation of ourselves as we fight off this pandemic. We're also part of a South-South collaboration with the Government of Argentina, the Pan-American Health Organisation and the Caribbean Public Health Agency, started last year in 2019, to strengthen laboratory diagnosis of antibiotic resistance.
Our experiences with implementation have served to highlight that education alone is not sufficient to change practice. At country level testing, infrastructure and materials as well as trained personnel are needed to identify gaps in best practice. Other resources are necessary to allow alternative ways of doing business, all of which turn and are dependent on financing and partnership.
00:19:37
The Prime Minister of Bangladesh made the point that we need to ensure equitable access for all across the globe and we are even more sensitive to this reality given what we are facing with the pandemic. I hope that the world will find both the political will and the financial resources to encourage a multisectoral and multidimensional approach such that we can conquer this problem by putting sufficient resources behind the research necessary for us to move to the next level.
There is a view that we have not put sufficient resources to advance progress on combating antimicrobial resistance. It is a view that Barbados shares. We are therefore committed to doing whatever we can along with whoever we can to achieve success in this struggle for at a very personal level almost all of us know people who have been victims of this antimicrobial resistance and of hospital-aided infections.
It is up to us to ensure that we not only leave this problem behind us in the third decade of the 21st century but that we also commit to ensuring that the vulnerable among states and the vulnerable among our citizens are not left behind as we fight this most grave of battles. I thank you.
TAG Thank you so much, Your Excellency, Prime Minister Mottley, and I'm also very proud that my new granddaughter actually shares the same name with you, Mia, so I'm really proud and thank you for your support and commitment.
00:21:21
I'm also delighted to be joined today by my colleagues in the tripartite, Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, and Dr Monique Eloit, Director-General of the World Organisation for Animal Health. Mr Qu, welcome and you have the floor.
QD Thank you, my brother, and Your Excellencies, Prime Ministers of Bangladesh and Barbados, ladies and gentlemen. I'm so happy to see all of you are safe and well. Taking this opportunity I would like to thank my brother, Dr Tedros, for the great leadership in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today we're here to announce the establishment of a Global Leaders' Group on antimicrobial resistance, AMR. It is an important milestone of the AMR global agenda and we're playing a key role in global governance.
00:22:28
The Global Leaders' Group will have a catalytic effect and demonstrate strong leadership and advance the response on AMR which will sustain the political momentum and build the public support and resource mobilisation at regional and national levels.
FAO is committed to work together with the WHO and OIE in tackling AMR through the One Health approach. A new FAO action plan on AMR for 2021 to 2025 will be launched next year. This will consolidate FAO's position to contribute to the international efforts to combat AMR and provide further support to governments, producers, traders and other stakeholders in adopting measures to minimise the use of antimicrobials and contain AMR.
AMR is everyone's business. We are now in the middle of World Antimicrobials Awareness Week. FAO's theme for this week is AMR is here now, and a united, strengthened food system and secure livelihoods.
A series of events are planned this week to increase awareness and stakeholders' engagement. During the COVID-19 crisis we must not forget that AMR is the slow-motion pandemic with a significant long-term threat to the global public health and food situation which needs multi-stakeholders' engagement.
00:24:07
If AMR is left unchecked the next pandemic we face could be bacteria and much deadlier [?] if the drugs needed to treat it do not work. AMR is here and now so we need to double our efforts and strengthen our partnership with all stakeholders, international organisations, private sector and civil society because only together can we ensure the one world, one health and one planet we are living on.
Thank you for your contribution, engagement and commitment. Over to you, Mr Tedros.
TAG Thank you, DG Qu. Thank you so much for your partnership and friendship. Now it's my honour to introduce the Director-General of the World Organisation for Animal Health, Dr Monique Eloit. Monique, welcome and you have the floor.
ME Thank you very much for your introduction and thank you for giving me the floor. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, good evening. As you know, we are all experiencing the global crisis due to COVID-19, severely impacting our lives and altering the livelihoods of millions of families.
00:25:32
We also must remain vigilant to other looming global health threats such as antimicrobial resistance. The good news - because we have good news - is that we know how to tackle antimicrobial resistance to avoid this issue becoming the next global crisis but we need to act together and act now.
At the World Organisation for Animal Health we also strongly believe in the fundamental idea of the One Health concept where by the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment are considered as intrinsically linked and where global health risks such as antimicrobial resistance need to be addressed through this lens from the outset.
The tripartite, our three-way partnership between the FAO, WHO and OIE and [unclear] has been collaborating for over a decade to combat this growing problem, committing resources and energy into targeted activities based on the One Health approach to prevent an AMR crisis from arising.
Within the animal sector for instance the OAE continues to strengthen veterinary services [unclear] through appropriate and updated legislation and regulations and the tripartite international instrument's publication, which the WHO DG has referred to a few minutes ago, is an additional tool for doing so.
00:27:07
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the tripartite is placed in a unique position to develop actions and strategies to solve the global issues of antimicrobial resistance. However the newly created One Health global leaders' group will help us to accelerate our efforts forward.
Today's launch of this group is not a starting point but an important additional new step to bring together the power of heads of state, public, civil society foundations, academia and private sectors of course to reimagine governance and advocate for a common objective, namely the prudent and responsible use of antimicrobials.
I would like to therefore warmly thank all the personalities who have accepted to be members and in particular the two Co-Chairs, Her Excellency, Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, and Her Excellency, Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, who are with us today and apparently already very much engaged. Thank you for that.
00:28:18
The tripartite will give us benefit from the strength of the One Health Global Leaders' Group who strategically elevate the AMR issues, ensuring sustainable political momentum and support. So thanks to this One Health multi-sector approach and together we will reconnect all the dots, ensuring humans, animals, plants and the environment are kept healthy and safe from AMR. Thank you very much for your attention.
TAG Merci beaucoup, Dr Eloit, and thank you so much for your partnership and friendship and thank you also to all our guests and our leaders; Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Prime Minister Mottley and my two colleagues. We look forward to working closely with all of you to protect the medicines that protect us. Thank you so much and, Fadela, back to you.
FC Thank you, Dr Tedros. Just to remind journalist, we have simultaneous interpretation in the six UN official languages plus Portuguese and Hindi. I would like now to open the floor to questions from members of the media. I remind you that you need to use the raise your hand function in order to get in the queue and to ask a question and unmute yourself.
00:29:48
Can I maybe make a suggestion to our friends from the media; if you can start raising your hand for questions on AMR because we have the opportunity to respond to your questions from several experts and guests so I would like to take the first questions about AMR and then we will come to your questions on COVID and other issues.
I would like to invite the first journalist, Laurent Zero from ATS, Swiss news agency. Laurent, can you hear me?
LA I can, thank you, but actually it's not a question on AMR so do you want me to wait?
FC Yes, Laurent, thank you. I will come back to you later on. The second journalist I have online is Carmen Pone from Politico. Carmen, can you hear me?
CA Yes, I can, Fadela. Thank you so much. My question is about AMR and coronavirus. I was wondering if all the cleaning that is happening now around the world of surfaces and public transportation and all that kind of stuff, which I understand also uses antimicrobial substances; is there any concern that that will contribute in the long term to a rise in antimicrobial resistance? Thank you.
00:31:21
FC Thank you, Carmen. I would like to invite Dr Hanan Balkhy to take this question. Dr Balkhy.
HB Yes, thank you very much. That's a very important question and I think there's a big relevance to that question since there is a small body of literature that has been emerging on resistance to not just the alcohol hand-rub but some of the detergents like the quat-ammoniums and whatnot.
That data is not really robust or strong at the moment and I think in order for us to avoid such emergence of resistance again we encourage the researchers and the scientists to continue to tackle this issue but we need to focus on the basics of infection prevention and control in the healthcare settings so that we do not need to overwhelm the system with the usage of these entities.
So we cannot compensate for overcrowdedness, lack of change or cleaning between patients with the overuse of these agents. I hope that addresses your question. Thank you.
FC Thank you, Dr Balkhy. I would like now to invite a journalist from the Observer/Times of India, Ashwin, to ask the next question. Are you with us?
00:32:46
AS Thank you. Hello. Can you audible to me?
FC Yes, you can ask your question. We can hear you very well. Go ahead, please.
AS Thank you. Which are the steps [unclear] by WHO in order to establish, maintain and monitor a network of international basic science research centres that will [inaudible]...?
FC You were cut. Can you...?
AS [Overtalking] investigations into the... Hello.
FC Hi. I think you were cut. Sir, is your question about COVID or antimicrobial resistance?
AS It's on microbial threats to global health.
FC Can you repeat your question, please? You were cut in the middle.
00:33:47
AS Yes, sure. Which are the steps [inaudible] by WHO in order to establish, maintain and monitor a network of international basic science research centres that will support fundamental investigations into the pathophysiology of certain microbial threats to global health?
FC Thank you. I would like to invite Dr Haileyesus Getahun, Director for Global Coordination and Partnership, to take this question. Haile, you have the floor.
HYG Thank you very much. I understand the question refers to the network of researchers and centres. Yes, WHO is working with collaborating centres in certain different areas that address antimicrobial resistance and we have also a system of collecting and strengthening the network.
Also as part of our broader One Health approach in the future we have a plan to establish a partnership platform that will also bring the different academicians and research centres and collaborators so that we can have a shared vision and goal to tackle this crisis. Thank you.
FC Thank you. I would like now to invite Priti Patnyak from Geneva Health Files to ask the next question. Priti, can you hear me?
00:35:30
PR Hear me?
FC Yes, very well. Go ahead, Priti.
PR Thank you for taking my question. My question was on remdesivir. Can you please clarify whether remdesivir. continues to be a part of, one of the arms of the Solidarity trial and when will WHO share the trial data with other regulators? Thank you.
FC Thank you. Priti, I wanted really to take the first questions about AMR to take advantage of the presence of so many experts and guests so I would like now to invite you to wait. We will take your question but now I would like to invite Peter Kinney from Anadolu to ask the next question if it is about AMR.
PE No, my question is not about AMR.
FC Okay. I think we will take the question about remdesivir. Janet Diaz. Priti, can you repeat your question? Priti?
00:36:57
PR Can you hear me now?
FC Yes. Can you just repeat your question, please?
PR Yes. My question was whether and why remdesivir. will continue to be a part of the, one of the arms of the Solidarity trial and when will WHO share trial data with other regulators? Because we understand that these are interim results but are you going to share the whole data with other regulators and at what point? Thank you.
FC Thank you Dr Diaz will take this question.
JD Thanks so much. I'm going to just give a brief response on behalf of the colleagues in the research and development group who do the Solidarity trial. My role is mostly writing the clinical guidelines.
The Solidarity results are available in pre-print and those are publicly available and that provided some of the largest evidence source for the guideline that we published and the recommendation we made today. That is currently under peer review in a journal and, from what I know, will be available shortly.
00:38:03
SS I could comment, Fadela.
FC Yes, please, Soumya, go ahead.
SS Thank you, Priti. As you know, the results of the Solidarity trial that were released on October 15th were interim results so the trial is continuing with the remdesivir. arm until the sample size is reached.
We had an agreement with Gilead for a certain number of doses and we will continue to enrol until we complete that. On sharing of the data, yes, absolutely, when we have these clinical trials and we work with different manufacturers we have an agreement with them to share the database once the trial is completed and the data set is locked.
That will take a few more weeks because the trial is still ongoing, people are being randomised but what will be available very soon is the peer-reviewed publication. That should be out in the next couple of days but it's almost the same as what had been released in the pre-print so most of the data is already out there. Thank you.
00:39:17
MR Can I just add to what Soumya said, that process at the end in terms of the raw data, the tables; that is a very careful process that each trial has to go through and WHO is operating according to the best practices with all of the external oversight, the internal oversight and the mechanisms to ensure that those final data sets are absolutely correct and reflect exactly what happened in the trial.
So this is absolutely standard practice for what we're doing; the pre-print, moving into what is being published imminently, the work that Janet and her team have led, which has been a very careful process of looking at our living therapeutic guidelines because in the end all of this matters in the front line.
Can front-line doctors and nurses get the information they need to make clinical decisions about the best use of drugs that will best help their patients? This is what we're really aiming for. This isn't the battle of the scientific publications, it's not a battle of drugs, it's not a battle between drug companies. This is about getting the best possible information into the clinical teams who save lives on wards and giving them the best possible chance of helping people.
00:40:30
The work that Janet, her team and so many hundreds of clinicians around the world have done over the last number of weeks is to do a systematic review of all of the data available on therapeutics and ensuring that clinicians have access to the best possible synthesis of all of the data and all of the research collected.
Soumya's team, the R&D team, Janet's team work in a fantastic collaboration of upstream science and discovery, trials and downstream delivery of best practice. I've never seen a better example of how those worlds have engaged and interacted to the benefit of the people who need our help most.
MS [Unclear], Fadela.
FC Dr Simao, do you want to add something? You have the floor.
MS Yes, very quickly. It's just on the communication to the national regulatory authorities. As you know, WHO had a conditional prequalification based on data available in earlier trials earlier in the year and right now with the communication of the report and the guidelines coming out of WHO, the guidelines and recommendations for remdesivir., WHO has notified the producer, the manufacturers who have answered the expression of interest for the prequalification of remdesivir. and has suspended the conditional prequalification that we had already issued in October until further review of further data.
00:42:11
At the time that we do this all the national regulatory authorities are notified. Thank you.
FC Thank you all and I would like now to invite once again Laurent Zero from ATS, the Swiss news agency, to ask his question. Thank you for your patience, Laurent. Go ahead.
LA Thank you, Fadela. There was a British study released today that shows that most of the people infected seem to be immune now for at least six months before being threatened with being reinfected. Have you changed your observations on that question? Thank you.
MR I'll being and pass to Maria. No, first of all this is really good news to see that we're seeing sustained levels of immune response in humans so far and it's good news to see that and we really commend the researchers for doing those longitudinal studies. This is something that WHO is co-ordinating with many groups around the world, not just doing one study but looking at the same group of people over a long period of time because that's going to give us the best data on things like this.
00:43:23
But we will obviously absorb this into our living systematic reviews on this. This is potentially significant news. It extends the period for which we know there is likely protection and hopefully that period will extend further and further but we know there may be limits to that.
It also gives us hopes as well on the vaccine side that if we start to see similar immune responses to the vaccine we may hope for longer periods of protection but Maria will have more details on how we're tracking that here.
MK Thanks, Mike, and thanks for the question. Yes, this is very good news of research that's coming out from this group and also other groups that are following individuals over time. What we are seeing - and you heard us speak a lot about this, about really trying to better understand the body's reaction to infection in terms of the development of antibodies and neutralising antibodies in particular.
00:44:14
What we're seeing now as we're reaching almost a year into this pandemic; some of those early cases are now being followed over many months and these are studies that collect samples from those cases, those patients who have now recovered but collect samples over every month or every few weeks or so.
We're now getting up to four, five, six months of tracking them and looking at the antibody responses and this is very good news. It is promising and confirming what other studies are also finding as well and what they show and what we do know is that people who are infected with the SARS-CoV2 virus will develop an antibody response within one to three weeks of infection and now we're seeing that that antibody response is lasting and it's lasting for months.
We still need to follow these individuals for a longer period of time so we can determine how long these antibodies last but this is good news.
In addition to studies that are following the same individual over time WHO is working with more than 50 countries who are carrying out studies right now looking at the antibody responses in different types of populations, either the general population or front-line workers like health workers.
00:45:31
We have an additional 50 countries that want to carry out one or more of these studies and so this is building a body of evidence that is helping us to understand what proportion of the population has been exposed and infected and what that is looking like over time.
There are more than 300 studies that have published results so far, either looking at general population or left-over clinical samples or have followed patients over time and looked at their antibody response. This is really incredible and it's a tremendous body of research that is helping us look forward and helping us think to the future of what this may mean.
Most of the studies that have been published have results from the spring of the general population studies and what we're looking for are more studies that have results of populations sampled in the fall, in September, October, November. Many of these are currently underway so we don't have the results of those yet but what we're looking for is to see, what does the antibody response look like in the population.
00:46:32
So this is really wonderful and we are grateful to all of our partners who are carrying these out, we are grateful to the labs that are developing serologic assays and trying every day to make those assays even stronger and even more accurate.
We are grateful to researchers who are working with us to share those results because ultimately what we would like to do is be able to pool those results together to get global estimates, to get regional estimates to help us think through and understand where this pandemic is going.
FC Thank you. I would like now to call on Peter Kinney from Anadolu, Turkish news agency, to ask his question. Thank you for your patience. Peter, you have the floor.
PE Thank you. My question is not on MRA or on COVID; it's actually to the DG and I'd like to get some clarification from him to just put the record straight. There've been a lot of allegations made about what's going on in Ethiopia and Tigray and his involvement there. Can he just straighten out for the record what the situation is? Thank you.
00:47:43
FC Dr Tedros.
TAG Yes, thank you. Thank you, Peter. I think I have already issued a statement yesterday and I believe that that's enough to clarify the issue. Thank you.
FC Thank you, DG. I would like now to invite John Zaracostas to ask the next question. John.
JO Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Hello?
FC Yes. Go ahead, please, John.
JO My question is to all the experts on the panel and in particular to FAO and OAE as well. How much is the AMR problem being aggravated by overprescription of antibiotics by medical practitioners and by vets in poultry and cattle for instance? Would mandatory labelling of what antibiotics are used help to reduce this on the animal side of things?
FC Thank you, John. I think we will start with Dr Hanan Balkhy and then we will give the floor to our guests.
00:48:55
HB Sure, thank you very much. I think this is a multi-tiered question so thank you for this question. There is evidence that the misuse of antimicrobials has been aggravated definitely by COVID, which was not a surprise to us because the misuse of antibiotics in any viral infection has already been a very long-term issue that we've been struggling with and we've been trying to advocate for not using antimicrobials for viral illness specifically with respiratory diseases where the majority of infections are caused by viruses.
We have established in the updated guidelines of May 2020 for the COVID treatment on the scenarios where antimicrobials could be used so if you can please refer to that as well; it discourages the use of antimicrobials as empiric therapy in community infections and people who require to stay at home and in those who are in the hospital setting for the healthcare providers to definitely look into de-escalation or downgrading therapy and discontinuing it when a bacterial infection is no longer identified in that specific patient.
The other thing that has been very relevant in the literature; several studies have already come out looking into admitted COVID patients. Not more than ten to 12, maximum 15% of they would end up with a super-bacterial infection or a secondary bacterial infection yet over 70% of them are receiving antimicrobial agents; again not a very unique scenario for misuse of antibiotics.
00:50:38
That is why the AMR division has been working really hard on establishing and providing technical assistance for establishing antimicrobial stewardship programmes in the healthcare settings. There's a lot to say about that but I'd like to hand it back to Fadela for...
FC Thank you so much, Dr Balkhy. I would like now to invite Dr Matthew Stone, an expert with OIE, who wanted to respond to John Zaracostas. Dr Stone, you have the floor.
MA Thank you very much. It's actually a very complex question because the technical issues associated with attribution of the antimicrobial resistance burden globally are two; use and overuse - let's be clear - in human health, animal health and plant health and the potential outflow from usage in each of those sectors in the environment is a very technically complex issue.
00:51:44
So we're not able to at this stage attribute the burden of disease to any particular sector but, as Dr Balkhy has said, there is a huge effort going on, a combined effort, a One Health effort across the tripartite agencies and with our informational partners to deliver the message of prudent and responsible use of antimicrobials, to account for our usage, to ensure that there are clear clinical treatment guidelines and a good understanding of the hierarchy of molecules of usage so that the most important microbials are preserved for the most important usage.
Let me also note that in the animal health sector the OIE has a long-standing programme - we're now into our fifth year of data collection - to work with our member countries to understand their usage patterns of antimicrobials in animals, across terrestrial animals and aquatic animals, to understand what molecules they're using and what diseases they're treating in terms of those molecules.
We're producing an annual report and this accounting mechanism, this transparency associated with usage is allowing countries to track their own usage and hopefully drive that usage down but most importantly drive it towards prudent and responsible use.
00:53:23
FC Thank you so much. I would like now to invite Simon Ateba to ask the next question. Simon, can you hear me?
SI I can hear you.
FC Go ahead, please.
SI Thank you for taking my question. This is Simon Ateba from Today News Africa in Washington DC and my question is to Dr Tedros. Joe Biden is now the President-Elect here in this US after his election victory against President Trump in the November 3rd presidential election.
He already has promised to join the WHO on day one when he's sworn in on January 20th 2021. What is your message to the incoming American President and beyond the COVID-19 crisis what other type of partnership would you like to have with the US going forward? Thank you.
TAG Thank you so much for that question; it's very important. I think communicating to leaders through media wouldn't help but we're in touch. Thank you so much. We have already sent our messages. Thank you.
00:54:49
FC Thank you all. I think we have reached one hour since we started our press conference. If there is no other comment from our guests or experts from WHO I would like to hand over to Dr Tedros for his final words.
TAG Thank you. Thank you so much and once again I would like to thank Prime Minister Mottley and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and also my two colleagues, Qu Dongyu and also Monique Eloit. I would like to thank all those who have joined today and look forward to working closely and through the global leadership now.
We have the most committed leaders in the two Prime Ministers and look forward to working closely to make a difference in AMR and of course One Health and I would like to also thank you all in the media who have joined today.
I would like to thank all colleagues who have been working on building this global leadership from OIE, from FAO and also my own colleagues from WHO, Hanan and Getahun, Haileyesus . It's really well done. Thank you so much and see you in our upcoming presser. Thank you.
00:56:31
MR Chief, can I just add on the fact that it is World Children's Day, just to shout out to our sister agency, UNICEF, and all of those agencies and others and front-line workers who work with children around the world, especially to those children out there; we all have them.
I know how tough it is for you kids to keep explaining the world to us, to try and make it better and, as JFK said - and I think we should listen to this as adults - children are the living messengers we send to a time we will not see. I think if we think about our children in that way we will see that they are the true value of our society and the true resource that we send to the future.
As you said in your speech, DG, but from the staff at WHO as well I think we stand today with those who stand for children.
TAG Yes, thank you for reminding me of that, Mike. I would be happy to join Mike in this and, as you know, today is World Children's Day and as our colleagues at UNICEF say, it's a day to reimagine a better future for every child. We would like to send greetings to Henrietta Fore and all our UNICEF colleagues.
Although children are less at risk from severe COVID disease children have suffered from the pandemic in many ways and our response to the pandemic and the way we recover from it will shape the world our children grow up in.
00:58:10
That makes it even more important to fight the pandemic with every tool at our disposal, to save lives now and give our children a better future. I thank you.
FC Thank you, DG. Just to remind journalists, they will be receiving the DG's opening remarks and the audio file just after this press conference. The transcript will be available as of tomorrow on the WHO website. Thanks to our journalists who are following us regularly and special thanks to our interpreter team.
If you have any follow-up questions to WHO or our sister agencies please don't hesitate to contact the media team at WHO and have a nice weekend.
00:59:00