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STORY: WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
TRT: 4:32
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 06 MAY 2020, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
FILE – GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, WHO emblem outside headquarters
06 MAY 2020, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“The risk of returning to lockdown remains very real if countries do not manage the transition extremely carefully, and in a phased approach.”
4. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“The COVID-19 pandemic will eventually recede, but there can be no going back to business as usual. We cannot continue to rush to fund panic but let preparedness go by the wayside. As we work on responding to this pandemic, we must also work harder to prepare for the next one.”
6. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Now is an opportunity to lay the foundations for resilient health systems around the world, which has been ignored for long. That includes systems to prepare, prevent and respond to emerging pathogens. If we learn anything from COVID-19, it must be that investing in health now will save lives later.”
8. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“From the beginning, we assumed that there would be human to human transmission. And in our first reporting to our Member States and contact points on the 5th of January, it's in our EIS, which is event information system. We included detailed information about the cluster itself and also about, protecting against acute respiratory infections. We also published on that day, our first Disease Outbreak News.”
10. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Our guidance before, during 14 January and after actually included the likelihood of human to human transmission that helped countries to prepare.”
12. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“And we will do the assessment when the time comes, in what we call the after-action review. So we will see what happened based on the timeline, when we do the assessment, but now I call upon the world to focus on fighting the fire.”
14. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“In this paper, the authors themselves say that it could be a false positive, but assuming it's not, it is possible that this individual may have had COVID-19 in December. This was about a month before the first cases were reported in France. We need more information about this particular case, if this is the case, to find out, the different types of history that this, this individual may have had.
16. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“In this particular case, I think the clinicians and France and other places, very often will do this, and we think this is a very prudent approach; if you have someone with a serious illness and you can't make the diagnosis, very often, hospitals will freeze samples as a standard practice, which allows them to come back later and do further diagnostic tests should diagnosis or a new virus or anything else emerge. So, it's a very prudent that that is done. We look forward to any further examinations that are done by other researchers around the world who may find similar cases.”
18. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Each country is using a slightly different application with slightly different opt in or opt out processes. And obviously countries have to take very good care of the fact that tracking peoples' location needs to be done for the sole purpose of a COVID-19 response. And that is something that is being discussed actively in each country.”
20. Wide shot, WHO officials at presser
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Ghebreyesus said the risk of returning to lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic “remains very real if countries do not manage the transition extremely carefully, and in a phased approach.”
Speaking at a press conference in Geneva today (06 May), Tedros said the COVID-19 pandemic would eventually recede, “but there can be no going back to business as usual. We cannot continue to rush to fund panic but let preparedness go by the wayside. As we work on responding to this pandemic, we must also work harder to prepare for the next one.”
The WHO chief said, “Now is an opportunity to lay the foundations for resilient health systems around the world, which has been ignored for long. That includes systems to prepare, prevent and respond to emerging pathogens. If we learn anything from COVID-19, it must be that investing in health now will save lives later.”
Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead at WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme said the Organization assumed from the beginning that there would be human to human transmission, which was reflected in its first reporting to its Member States on 5 January.
Tedros said WHO’s guidance before, during 14 January and after actually included the likelihood of human to human transmission that helped countries to prepare. He stressed that an assessment would be made in what is called the “after-action review,” but called upon the world “to focus on fighting the fire.”
Addressing reports that the first COVID-19 case in France may have occurred in December, Van Kerkhove said the authors of the paper “themselves say that it could be a false positive, but assuming it's not, it is possible that this individual may have had COVID-19 in December,” a month before the first case in country was reported. She said more information about this particular case was needed, “if this is the case, to find out, the different types of history that this individual may have had.”
Michael Ryan, Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said in many cases when someone is seriously ill and a diagnosis can’t be made, “very often, hospitals will freeze samples as a standard practice, which allows them to come back later and do further diagnostic tests should diagnosis or a new virus or anything else emerge,” which is what happened in the French case. He added, “We look forward to any further examinations that are done by other researchers around the world who may find similar cases.”
