WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE

‘When the next pandemic comes, the world must be ready – more ready than it was this time," WHO’s chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said to reporters in Geneva on Monday adding “that means investing in population-based services for preventing, detecting and responding to disease.” WHO

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:04:24
• Production Date: 8 September 2020
• Asset Language: English
• Personal Subject: TEDROS GHEBREYESUS
• Corporate Name: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION - WHO
• Subject Topical: DISEASE CONTROL
• MAMS Id: 2555827
• Parent Id: 2555827
• Alternate Title: unifeed200908b

Description

STORY: WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
TRT:4:24
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS

DATELINE: 7 SEPTEMEBR 2020, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Shotlist

1. Wide shot, podium in press room
2.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO:
"Public health is the foundation of social, economic and political stability. That means investing in population-based services for preventing, detecting and responding to disease. This will not be the last pandemic. History teaches us that outbreaks and pandemics are a fact of life. But when the next pandemic comes, the world must be ready – more ready than it was this time."
3.Wide shot, podium in press room
4.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, WHO:
5."And then of course we're talking about using it, not on millions of people, but potentially on billions of people. So we have to put into perspective the introduction of a vaccine, given these new circumstances that have not been in the past. And then evaluating the risks and benefits of introducing a vaccine before we have adequate data on both efficacy and safety."
6.Wide shot, podium in press room
7.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, WHO:
"Efficacy, one would be able to assess based on vaccinating a significant number of people, half given the vaccine the other half not given the vaccine or given a placebo, and then looking at the number of infections in these two groups. And you expect a reduction of at least 50 percent in the vaccinated group. Safety, is a little more complex because safety involves both immediate side effects, which are quite common with many vaccines. So, you may have fever, you may have pain at the local site or swelling, which usually subsides in a couple of days, but then you need longer follow-up for side effects, particularly unexpected side effects, which you may see only over weeks and months. And so we would expect to see a follow-up again for a significant period of time to look both for long lasting protection and safety signals that may pick up later."
8.Wide shot, podium in press room
9.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, WHO:
"So, that is why WHO has these criteria and we'd like to see data on both safety and efficacy in significant numbers of people. So, the phase 1 and 2 studies are usually done in a few dozen individuals. And while these give you some idea about safety and also an idea about the immunogenicity of the vaccine, what we are really looking for are signals for efficacy and safety during a longer follow-up."
10.Wide shot, podium in press room
11.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical lead, Health Emergencies Programme, WHO:
"What WHO recommends is a quarantine period, so these are contacts of confirmed cases of 14 days. And I was referring to the incubation period of when somebody goes from exposure to when they develop symptoms, on average is between five and six days, but it can go up to 14 days, which is why we make that 14 day period. We're always looking at the evidence of the incubation period coming from all different countries and looking at if that can be modified and if so, can it be modified with the addition of testing or whatnot. So, we are looking at that, but right now, and it continues to remain, a quarantine day period of 14 days."
12.Close up, WHO seal
13.Wide shot, podium in press room
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Mike Ryan Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, WHO:
"We also advise that people who travel and travel internationally are travelers. They're not contacts. They may be coming from a country that has a higher incidence. So, people who are known contacts of confirmed cases should not travel. So people who are traveling by definition are not contacts. So they're not the same category as Maria spoke about. Now, governments and people have to manage a very complex issue here: managing two weeks, self isolation or restricted movement when people arrive in the country is for a business person, for someone going home to see family that's quite an imposition. But those individuals are coming from an area of perceived risk in another country, they're not contacts of COVID, and therefore governments are within their rights if they want to, to reduce the time of observation that those individuals are in specific self quarantine or self restricted movement."
15. Wide shot, podium in press room

Storyline

‘When the next pandemic comes, the world must be ready – more ready than it was this time," WHO’s chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said to reporters in Geneva on Monday (7 Sep) adding “that means investing in population-based services for preventing, detecting and responding to disease.”

“This will not be the last pandemic,” warned Dr Tedros.

Also speaking at the press conference in Geneva on Monday, WHO’s Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan, explained the process of certifying the efficiency and safety of a potential vaccine, while Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical lead of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme elaborated on the WHO’s quarantine recommendations.

For his part, Dr Mike Ryan Executive Director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme commented on disparities between the agency’s and different governments’ quarantine recommendations and requirements.