Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoUnifeed
WHO / COVID-19 RESEARCH
STORY: WHO / COVID-19 RESEARCH
TRT: 05:03
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, meeting room
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"Just over two years ago, as the world was still coming to grips with the spread of this novel coronavirus, WHO did what only WHO can do – we brought scientists together from around the world to identify the most urgent priorities for research and development. It’s incredible to think that at the time, there were just over 1000 reported deaths in China, and only one reported death in the rest of the world. 24 months later, and almost 6 million people have lost their lives. The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis unlike any that any of us have experienced in our lifetimes. It is teaching us all many painful lessons."
3. Med shot, journalist working
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"WHO and partners have maintained a network of global researchers and experts that have produced a Global Research Roadmap to focus research efforts on COVID-19, debate research priorities, develop methods and critically appraise emerging evidence. This effort involves hundreds of virtual scientific consultations with thousands of scientists around the world. These global research efforts have filled in many of the key knowledge gaps around COVID-19 identified in the roadmap, including the epidemiological behaviour of the virus, supporting the development of safe and effective vaccines in record time, and evaluating potential therapeutics."
5. Close up, journalist working
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Chief Scientist:
"I think we can all agree that the advances that we've made in the understanding of SARS-CoV-2, starting with the basic aspects of the virus, so the virologists understanding transmission, we've made huge inroads, I think, into understanding the transmission of respiratory viruses in general, and I think this will have a big impact on other respiratory diseases going forward. There's of course, the ongoing investigations into the origins of the virus, we know more about animal hosts now; the epidemiology, through the coordinated sero surveys that have been done across the world. And of course, a lot of research on diagnostics, on vaccines and therapeutics, including the platform trials like Solidarity that have seen amazing involvement from at least 50 countries."
7. Close up, journalist working
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Chief Scientist:
"But today, what we want to do is not only to take stock of what's been accomplished, you can do that in reading the report that has been published, but more importantly, to look into the future on how we should move and what's going to be needed in the immediate next few months as we look at ending the acute phase of the pandemic. But also what are the lessons that have been learned that we should apply to other public health problems that face us, as well as prepare for future pandemics?"
9. Med shot, journalist working
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Mike Ryan, EXD, WHO Health Emergencies Programme:
"We need continued research and innovation to finish this pandemic. We need to democratize the way in which that research is done. We need to transfer not just the technology of vaccines, but we need to transfer the capacity to do research in-situ, in countries, in real time. We need a better understanding as (German Health) Minister (Karl) Lauterbach said (in opening speech to event) about things like long COVID or post-COVID condition. We need to understand better so we may perform better in future. And that is exceptionally important as we think about long term pandemic preparedness. If we're going to perform better in the next pandemic, we must learn the lessons of this one."
11. Close up, journalist working
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Mike Ryan, EXD, WHO Health Emergencies Programme:
"But we now have to look to the future because what was great in this response in the research site was how quickly research was scaled, how quickly research was actually coordinated, and I think the research community demonstrated some of the behaviours that other sectors could have demonstrated much better. In fact, we had much more equity and inclusion in research than we had in sharing the benefits of that research."
13. Med shot, journalist working
The World Health Organization (WHO) is hosting the 3rd COVID-19 Global research and innovation forum on Thursday and Friday.
The virtual event will bring together diverse COVID-19 research scientists, regulatory experts, funders, Member States policy makers and other experts.
Opening the event, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said “"WHO and partners have maintained a network of global researchers and experts that have produced a Global Research Roadmap to focus research efforts on COVID-19, debate research priorities, develop methods and critically appraise emerging evidence.”
“This effort involves hundreds of virtual scientific consultations with thousands of scientists around the world. These global research efforts have filled in many of the key knowledge gaps around COVID-19 identified in the roadmap, including the epidemiological behaviour of the virus, supporting the development of safe and effective vaccines in record time, and evaluating potential therapeutics", Ghebreyesus added.
The forum will include scientific presentations and discussions that will focus on different areas of research. Moreover, there will be keynote presentations and panel discussions on how research can help to end this pandemic and prepare for future pandemics.
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Chief Scientist, said “What we want to do is not only to take stock of what's been accomplished, you can do that in reading the report that has been published, but more importantly, to look into the future on how we should move and what's going to be needed in the immediate next few months as we look at ending the acute phase of the pandemic. But also what are the lessons that have been learned that we should apply to other public health problems that face us, as well as prepare for future pandemics?"
During the two days, over 100 research scientists, experts, policy makers and donors worldwide will contribute their views towards the goals of the Forum.
Dr Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, asked for continued research and innovation to end the pandemic.
“We need to democratize the way in which that research is done. We need to transfer not just the technology of vaccines, but we need to transfer the capacity to do research in-situ, in countries, in real time”, Ryan said.
The Executive Director added, “And that is exceptionally important as we think about long term pandemic preparedness. If we're going to perform better in the next pandemic, we must learn the lessons of this one."
Download
There is no media available to download.
