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WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
STORY: WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
TRT: 04:35
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 13 AUGUST 2020, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
FILE – RECENT - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Various shots, exterior, WHO Headquarters
13 AUGUST 2020, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"In April, WHO convened world leaders and launched the Access to COVID-19 Tools ACT-Accelerator. In just three months, the accelerator has already shown results. As of today: Nine vaccine candidates are already in the COVAX portfolio and going through Phase 2 or 3 trials; and this portfolio – already the broadest in the world – is constantly expanding."
4. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"Funding the ACT-Accelerator will cost a tiny fraction in comparison to the alternative where economies retract further and require continued fiscal stimulus packages."
6. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
7. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"The first and most immediate need is $31.3 billion US dollars, for the ACT-Accelerator. The ACT-Accelerator is the only up and running global initiative that brings together all the global R&D, manufacturing, regulatory, purchasing and procurement needed, for all the tools required, to end the pandemic."
8. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Mariângela Simão, Assistant Director-General, Access to Medicines and Health Products, World Health Organization (WHO):
"If you are betting on one or two candidates, we have around 200 vaccine candidates at the moment, you know? So, what's your best bet? We don't have any of the vaccine candidates has finished the clinical trials yet. So, we don't know which one will be the frontrunner, which one will actually prove to be safe and effective."
10. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Bruce Aylward, Senior Advisor to the Director-general, World Health Organization (WHO):
"10 trillion dollars in global stimulus financing, a fiscal stimulus financing, to deal with the consequences of this disease, not even the causes and the kind of numbers that we're talking about to try and roll out a global solution, are a fraction of that. So again, coming to the points that we were discussing earlier, countries are recognizing that, they're recognizing that if we don't get a global solution, there's going to be waves of global fiscal stimulus financing needed to try and get out of this crisis, similar to what happened with the global financial crisis."
12. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Bruce Aylward, Senior Advisor to the Director-general, World Health Organization (WHO):
"We don't have sufficient information at this point to make a judgment on that. And we're currently in conversation with Russia to get additional information, understand the status of that product, the trials that have been undertaken and then what the next steps might be."
16. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical lead, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
"There are some examples of countries that have suggested that an individual may have been re-infected. It's not still not confirmed."
18. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
"I would characterize the global situation now, yes, we've seen a plateauing of numbers, Kai (journalist), and I know you track that, you track that every day, but this is like the cascades of a waterfall. You can go down one level and you think you're in calm water and you go over the next level and you're in a waterfall again, so I do think we need to be very, very careful. Calm waters do not mean the storm is over. We may just be in the eye of the storm and we don't know it. So, I think absolute vigilance now. And those countries that have made progress, please retain that progress. You will lose that progress if you relent, if you become complacent."
20. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical lead, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
"What we understand is that China is testing on packaging. They’re looking for the virus on packaging and they've tested a few hundred thousand samples of looking on packaging and have found very, very few less than 10 positive in doing that. We have issued guidance, um, with FAO on food handlers and working with food, working with frozen foods, working with live foods, to keep people safe in their working environment."
22. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
23. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical lead, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
"And if the virus is actually in food, and we have no examples of where this virus has been transmitted as a foodborne, where someone has consumed a food product."
24. Wide shot, WHO officials at press conference
The Head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, today (13 Aug) announced that the Access to COVID-19 Tools ACT-Accelerator, launched in April “has already shown results,” with nine vaccine candidates already in its portfolio going through Phase 2 or 3 trials.”
Dr Tedros said that funding the ACT-Accelerator, a global collaboration to accelerate the development, production and equitable access to new covid-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, “will cost a tiny fraction in comparison to the alternative where economies retract further and require continued fiscal stimulus packages."
Briefing reporters in Geneva, the WHO Director-General said, “the first and most immediate need is $31.3 billion US dollars, for the ACT-Accelerator. The ACT-Accelerator is the only up and running global initiative that brings together all the global R&D, manufacturing, regulatory, purchasing and procurement needed, for all the tools required, to end the pandemic."
The WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products, Dr Mariângela Simão, said, “if you are betting on one or two candidates, we have around 200 vaccine candidates at the moment, you know? So, what's your best bet? We don't have any of the vaccine candidates has finished the clinical trials yet. So, we don't know which one will be the frontrunner, which one will actually prove to be safe and effective."
Senior Advisor Dr Bruce Aylward said countries are recognizing that “if we don't get a global solution, there's going to be waves of global fiscal stimulus financing needed to try and get out of this crisis, similar to what happened with the global financial crisis."
Aylward said, “we don't have sufficient information at this point” to make a judgment on the Russian Federation’s announcement that it has become the first country to approve a COVID-19.
He said, “we're currently in conversation with Russia to get additional information, understand the status of that product, the trials that have been undertaken and then what the next steps might be."
WHO’s COVID-19 Technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said, “there are some examples of countries that have suggested that an individual may have been re-infected. It's not still not confirmed."
WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Dr Michael Ryan said, “we've seen a plateauing of numbers,” but added that “this is like the cascades of a waterfall. You can go down one level and you think you're in calm water and you go over the next level and you're in a waterfall again, so I do think we need to be very, very careful. Calm waters do not mean the storm is over.”
Van Kerkhove said, “what we understand is that China is testing on packaging. They're looking for the virus on packaging and they've tested a few hundred thousand samples of looking on packaging and have found very, very few, less than 10 positive in doing that.”
She said, “we have issued guidance, um, with FAO on food handlers and working with food, working with frozen foods, working with live foods, to keep people safe in their working environment."
Van Kerkhove said, “we have no examples of where this virus has been transmitted as a foodborne, where someone has consumed a food product."
According to the latest WHO COVID-19 situation report, there are 20,439,814 confirmed cases worldwide, leading to 744,385 deaths.
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