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WHO / TEDROS EARTHQUAKE PRESSER
STORY: WHO / TEDROS TÜRKIYE SYRIA EARTHQUAKE
TRT: 02:39
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WHO ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 07 FEBRUARY 2022, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior WHO Headquarters
07 FEBRUARY 2022, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, press conference
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"Last night I returned from the Syrian Arab Republic, where I visited areas affected by last week’s devastating earthquake. I saw the destruction of entire communities, the unspeakable suffering of people, and the courage and determination of survivors and responders.”
4. Wide shot, press conference
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“WHO is providing care to survivors with injuries and disabilities sustained in the earthquake; hypothermia; mental health and psychosocial needs; the increased risk of infectious diseases, and the range of regular health needs.”
6. Wide shot, press conference
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“In Damascus, the Regional Director Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, Chief of Emergencies Dr Mike Ryan and I met with President Assad, to discuss the impact of the earthquake, and we requested that he allow additional cross-border access points, which he indicated he was open to. On Monday, two more cross-border points were opened, allowing convoys from Türkiye into the north-west of the Syrian Arab Republic.”
8. Wide shot, press conference
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert Holden, Incident Manager, Earthquake Response, World Health Organization (WHO):
“There is strong national capacity in Northwest Syria, in particular, that we need to ensure that we give the immediate resources, the immediate support, the immediate help to those. They are the backbone of this operation and will remain the backbone of this operation going forward. So, our first priority is to ensure that those responding today, those in the hospitals today, those on the frontline today, get the equipment, the supplies and the medicines that they need to continue doing their job.”
10. Wide shot, press conference
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead COVID-19, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“This is an error in reporting which is really quite concerning because it is causing some headlines that are inaccurate. I think we need to be perfectly clear that WHO has not abandoned studying the origins of COVID-19. We have not. And we will not.”
12. Wide shot, press conference
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead COVID-19, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“I spent more than an hour speaking to this reporter over three separate interviews, one of which was in person while in Singapore together, describing the history of the different missions that have taken place over time in which WHO has been involved in studying and supporting field activities related to understanding the origins of this pandemic. Initially phase two was a plan to be a continuation of that January 2021 mission to Wuhan, which was in a sense seen as phase one. But we updated our plans and I have explained it to the reporter.”
14. Wide shot, press conference
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead COVID-19, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“We will work with any Member State and all Member States, we will work with scientists to keep it rooted in the science until we have a better understanding of what happened, follow all hypothesis, follow any science that leads us in any direction and we thank the colleagues around the world who are helping us to advance this.”
16. Wide shot, press conference
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
The two reasons why we need to know the origins of this pandemic. First, it is science. And second it is a moral issue. First, when I say science, we need to know how this started in order to prevent the next one. Second, when I say moral, millions of people lost their lives. And many suffered and the whole world was taken hostage by a virus. And it is morally very important to know how we lost our loved ones.
18. Wide shot, press conference
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“It's the primary responsibility of Governments and nation states to investigate diseases within their borders. Primarily for the purpose of protecting their own populations by understanding where a disease comes from. We will see that with multiple diseases. It is also notoriously difficult to establish that unless there is a concerted effort. We still don't fully understand the origins of mpox, we still don’t fully understand the origins of Ebola. It can take years and years to establish it. It is not easy or straightforward.”
20. Wide shot, press conference
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“We are ready, obviously, to support those countries in doing that. We are welcomed in. We go and help control a disease and as part of that we try and understand that disease better on behalf of everybody. So, I don't think the question is to WHO. I think colleagues and the media need to direct their questions to the countries who have been asked very specifically through the SAGO report to carry out specific studies and report on those studies to WHO.”
22. Wide shot, press conference
23. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“If a country then has difficulties or has challenges in carrying out those studies and wants WHO to come and help, then obviously we do that at any time at the specific request of countries.”
24. Wide shot, press conference
Upon his return from the Syrian Arab Republic, World Health Organization’s (WHO) Chief Tedros Ghebreyesus today (15 Feb) said, "WHO is providing care to survivors with injuries and disabilities sustained in the earthquake; hypothermia; mental health and psychosocial needs; the increased risk of infectious diseases, and the range of regular health needs.”
During a press briefing in Geneva, Dr Tedros said, “I saw the destruction of entire communities, the unspeakable suffering of people, and the courage and determination of survivors and responders.”
He said the WHO delegation had met with President Bashar al-Assad, “to discuss the impact of the earthquake, and we requested that he allow additional cross-border access points, which he indicated he was open to.”
On Monday, he said, “two more cross-border points were opened, allowing convoys from Türkiye into the north-west of the Syrian Arab Republic.”
WHO’s Earthquake Response Incident Manager, Mr Robert Holden, told reporters that “there is strong national capacity in Northwest Syria, in particular, that we need to ensure that we give the immediate resources, the immediate support, the immediate help to those.”
Holden said, “they are the backbone of this operation and will remain the backbone of this operation going forward. So, our first priority is to ensure that those responding today, those in the hospitals today, those on the frontline today, get the equipment, the supplies and the medicines that they need to continue doing their job.”
Responding to a reporter’s question on the origins of the COVID-19 virus, WHO’s Technical Lead on COVID-19, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove said there had been “an error in reporting which is really quite concerning because it is causing some headlines that are inaccurate.”
Van Kerkhove said, “I think we need to be perfectly clear that WHO has not abandoned studying the origins of COVID-19. We have not. And we will not.”
Further, the WHO official said, “I spent more than an hour speaking to this reporter over three separate interviews, one of which was in person while in Singapore together, describing the history of the different missions that have taken place over time in which WHO has been involved in studying and supporting field activities related to understanding the origins of this pandemic. Initially phase two was a plan to be a continuation of that January 2021 mission to Wuhan, which was in a sense seen as phase one. But we updated our plans and I have explained it to the reporter.”
Van Kerkhove said, “we will work with any Member State and all Member States, we will work with scientists to keep it rooted in the science until we have a better understanding of what happened, follow all hypothesis, follow any science that leads us in any direction and we thank the colleagues around the world who are helping us to advance this.”
For his part, Dr Tedros said, “the two reasons why we need to know the origins of this pandemic. First, it is science. And second it is a moral issue. First, when I say science, we need to know how this started in order to prevent the next one. Second, when I say moral, millions of people lost their lives. And many suffered and the whole world was taken hostage by a virus. And it is morally very important to know how we lost our loved ones.”
WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director, Dr Michael Ryan, said, “it's the primary responsibility of Governments and nation states to investigate diseases within their borders. Primarily for the purpose of protecting their own populations by understanding where a disease comes from. We will see that with multiple diseases. It is also notoriously difficult to establish that unless there is a concerted effort. We still don't fully understand the origins of mpox, we still don’t fully understand the origins of Ebola. It can take years and years to establish it. It is not easy or straightforward.”
Ryan said, “we are ready, obviously, to support those countries in doing that. We are welcomed in. We go and help control a disease and as part of that we try and understand that disease better on behalf of everybody. So, I don't think the question is to WHO. I think colleagues and the media need to direct their questions to the countries who have been asked very specifically through the SAGO report to carry out specific studies and report on those studies to WHO.”
He said, “if a country then has difficulties or has challenges in carrying out those studies and wants WHO to come and help, then obviously we do that at any time at the specific request of countries.”
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