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WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
STORY: WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
TRT: 04:13
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 14 MAY 2021, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior WHO Headquarters
14 MAY 2021, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"In a handful of rich countries, which bought up the majority of the vaccine supply, lower risk groups are now being vaccinated. I understand why some countries want to vaccinate their children and adolescents, but right now I urge them to reconsider and to instead donate vaccines to COVAX. Because in low and lower-middle income countries, vaccine supply has not been enough to even immunise health and care workers, and hospitals are being inundated with people that need lifesaving care urgently. At present, only 0.3 percent of vaccine supply is going to low-income countries. Trickle down vaccination is not an effective strategy for fighting a deadly respiratory virus."
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"India remains hugely concerning, with several states continuing to see a worrying number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths. WHO is responding and has shipped thousands of oxygen concentrators, tents for mobile field hospitals, masks and other medical supplies."
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"COVID-19 has already cost more than 3.3 million lives and we’re on track for the second year of this pandemic to be far more deadly than the first. Saving lives and livelihoods with a combination of public health measures and vaccination – not one or the other - is the only way out of the pandemic."
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical lead, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
"So, as you know, WHO recommends masks, the use of masks as part of a comprehensive strategy towards controlling COVID - part of many different measures that are used to prevent the spread. In setting up policies to use masks as part of that strategy, it's very contextual. It's about how much virus is circulating around the country. It's about the amount of vaccines and vaccinations that are rolling out. It's about the variants of interest, the variants of concern that are circulating. We have to keep all of this in mind when thinking about how to adjust the policies associated with the use of masks. So, it is contextual. So, all of these considerations need to be taken into account."
10. Wide shot, press briefing room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, World Health Organization (WHO):
"So, again, majority of vaccines approved till now, almost all of them that are being used are accompanied by reductions in the need for hospitalization and definitely in the deaths that occur in the groups that are being immunized. However, these vaccines are all not 100 percent effective against preventing infection. The good news is that they do prevent infection in the range of 70 to 80 percent. Again, from the data that's coming out now from real world studies in countries that are scaling vaccination, we are learning more and more about how these vaccines behave at the population level rather than how they behave in clinical trials. So, we know that they do protect against infection, but not completely. So, you can still get infected, you can have asymptomatic or mild illness or even moderate symptoms even after being vaccinated. So that's not a complete surprise. And again, that's why the WHO has said that vaccination alone is not a guarantee against infection or against being able to transmit that infection to others."
12. Wide shot, press briefing room
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today (14 May) urged rich countries “to reconsider” vaccinating children and adolescents “and to instead donate vaccines to COVAX.”
During WHO’s regular briefing, Tedros said, “in low and lower-middle income countries, vaccine supply has not been enough to even immunise health and care workers, and hospitals are being inundated with people that need lifesaving care urgently.”
He noted that at present, only 0.3 percent of vaccine supply is going to low-income countries and said, “trickle down vaccination is not an effective strategy for fighting a deadly respiratory virus."
The WHO Director-General said, "India remains hugely concerning, with several states continuing to see a worrying number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths. WHO is responding and has shipped thousands of oxygen concentrators, tents for mobile field hospitals, masks and other medical supplies."
He said, "COVID-19 has already cost more than 3.3 million lives and we’re on track for the second year of this pandemic to be far more deadly than the first. Saving lives and livelihoods with a combination of public health measures and vaccination – not one or the other - is the only way out of the pandemic."
WHO’s COVID-19 Technical lead, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, said, "WHO recommends masks, the use of masks as part of a comprehensive strategy towards controlling COVID - part of many different measures that are used to prevent the spread. In setting up policies to use masks as part of that strategy, it's very contextual. It's about how much virus is circulating around the country. It's about the amount of vaccines and vaccinations that are rolling out. It's about the variants of interest, the variants of concern that are circulating. We have to keep all of this in mind when thinking about how to adjust the policies associated with the use of masks. So, it is contextual. So, all of these considerations need to be taken into account."
For her part, WHO’s Chief Scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, said amajority of vaccines approved till now achieve reductions in the need for hospitalization and deaths. However, she said, “these vaccines are all not 100 percent effective against preventing infection.”
The good news, she said, “is that they do prevent infection in the range of 70 to 80 percent” and added that “we know that they do protect against infection, but not completely. So, you can still get infected, you can have asymptomatic or mild illness or even moderate symptoms even after being vaccinated."
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