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WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
STORY: WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
TRT: 04:03
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 03 APRIL 2020, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior, WHO Headquarters
03 APRIL 2020, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, conference room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“More than one million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now been reported to WHO, including more than 50,000 deaths. But we know that this is much more than a health crisis. We're all aware of the profound social and economy consequences of the pandemic. The restrictions many countries have put in place to protect health are taking a heavy toll on the income of individuals and families and the economies of communities and nations.”
4. Med shot, dais
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Several countries are suspending user fees and providing free testing and care for COVID-19 regardless of a person's insurance citizenship or residency status, we encourage these measures. This is an unprecedented crisis, which demands and unprecedented response.”
6. Med shot, dais
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Micheal Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“What we need to absolutely ensure that as we, if we want to transition back to a steady state with the virus where we want to reach a point of disease control, we need to put in place the public health architecture. We need a massive investment in our capacity to do surveillance, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine. We need very good information systems. We need a highly educated, engaged, and empowered communities around the world who understand what to do if they're sick, where to go, have access to a doctor, to a nurse, to testing, to isolation, to quarantine. If we, and at the same time, we strengthen our healthcare system to deal with those who are very sick.”
8. Med shot, dais
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Micheal Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“We can certainly see circumstances in which the use of masks, but homemade or cloth mask at community level may help in an overall comprehensive response to this disease. And we will support governments in making those decisions based on the situation they find themselves in terms of transmission. Based on the context in which they're dealing and the resources that they have at their disposal. But above all, we must ensure that our frontline health workers are the ones who are most exposed. They're the ones that need the, the, the high-performance protection in order for them to stay healthy, do their jobs and save lives.”
10. Med shot, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove at the dais
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical lead, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“But what we need to better understand, and these will come through these natural history studies, which are being conducted of why are some people progressing from moderate disease, to severe disease, to critical disease? Why are some people progressing backwards, from various very severe disease, to more moderate disease, and recover? So, these are really fundamental questions that we need to better understand so that we can improve our standard of care for anyone who is infected with this.”
12. Med shot, journalist typing
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“To reduce the risk of increasing transmission of COVID-19, the polio oversight board has made the hard decision to suspend house to house vaccination campaigns, knowing that this may lead to an increase in polio cases. To reduce this risk, we will support countries to maintain essential immunization for all vaccine preventable diseases.”
14. Med shot, Dr Tedros at the dais
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Sadly, there are reports from some countries have an increase in domestic violence since the COVID-19 outbreak began.
16. Med shot, Dr Tedros at the dais
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“We call on countries to include services for addressing domestic violence as an essential service that must continue during the COVID-19 response.”
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
18. Wide shot, exterior, WHO Headquarters
World Health Programme (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today (3 Apr) announced that "more than 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now been reported to WHO, including more than 50,000 deaths."
Dr Tedros stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic “is much more than a health crisis” and has “profound social and economy consequences” as the restrictions many countries have put in place “are taking a heavy toll on the income of individuals and families and the economies of communities and nations.”
WHO’s Director-General noted that “several countries are suspending user fees and providing free testing and care for COVID-19 regardless of a person's insurance citizenship or residency status, we encourage these measures” and added this was “an unprecedented crisis, which demands and unprecedented response.”
The Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Micheal Ryan, said, “we need a massive investment in our capacity to do surveillance, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine. We need very good information systems. We need a highly educated, engaged, and empowered communities around the world who understand what to do if they're sick, where to go, have access to a doctor, to a nurse, to testing, to isolation, to quarantine” while also strengthening healthcare systems “to deal with those who are very sick.”
Dr Ryan said, “we can certainly see circumstances in which the use of masks, but homemade or cloth mask at community level may help in an overall comprehensive response to this disease,” but above all, he added, “we must ensure that our frontline health workers are the ones who are most exposed. They're the ones that need the, the, the high-performance protection in order for them to stay healthy, do their jobs and save lives.”
The technical lead of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, said better understanding is necessary “of why are some people progressing from moderate disease, to severe disease, to critical disease? Why are some people progressing backwards, from various very severe disease, to more moderate disease, and recover?”
Dr Tedros said that in order “to reduce the risk of increasing transmission of COVID-19, the polio oversight board has made the hard decision to suspend house to house vaccination campaigns, knowing that this may lead to an increase in polio cases.”
He also said that “sadly, there are reports from some countries have an increase in domestic violence since the COVID-19 outbreak began” and called on countries “to include services for addressing domestic violence as an essential service that must continue during the COVID-19 response.”
According to the WHO there are now globally 972,303 confirmed infections and 50 322 confirmed deaths from COVID-19
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