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STORY: WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
TRT: 3:47
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 22 FEBRUARY 2021, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, podium with speakers in press room
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO:
"I am deeply saddened and extremely concerned by the attack today on a humanitarian convoy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which left three people dead, including the Italian Ambassador. I would like to express my deepest condolences to their families as well as to the government and people of Italy."
3. Wide shot, podium with speakers in press room
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO:
"The G7 countries have shown leadership, but we need all countries to step up. We still face a gap of at least 22.9 billion dollars to fully finance the ACT Accelerator this year. It’s important to note, however, that money is not the only challenge we face. If there are no vaccines to buy, money is irrelevant. Currently, some high-income countries are entering contracts with vaccine manufacturers that undermine the deals that COVAX has in place and reduce the number of doses COVAX can buy. Even if we have the funds, we can only deliver vaccines to poorer countries if high-income countries cooperate in respecting the deals COVAX has done, and the new deals it is doing. This is not a matter of charity. It’s a matter of epidemiology. Unless we end the pandemic everywhere, we will not end it anywhere."
5. Wide shot, podium with speakers in press room
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases:
"We have an extraordinary challenge, and the challenge is that clearly we need to get vaccines produced and distributed in an equitable way, not only in the United States because it is clear each country must take care of their own. But also, the equitable distribution, as mentioned by Dr Tedros, of vaccines so that we realize that this is a global pandemic requiring a global response."
7. Wide shot, podium with speakers in press room
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases:
“The best way to have sustainable capability of being able to respond to outbreaks not only the outbreak of COVID-19 but also the inevitable outbreaks that will also occur in the future is to build capacity within country that is sustainable."
9. Wide shot, podium with speakers in press room
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Chief Scientist:
"For those that have the technology, manufacturers or the academic labs to share with companies, production sites in different companies around the world to actually do that technology transfer and to build the capacity. Especially with the new platform technologies that can be very quickly adapted to deal with other pathogens. WHO setup a mechanism, the COVID technology access pool, which can facilitate the tech transfer. And so, I hope that we will see a growing interest in this because it will only help everyone if we have more sites across the world distributed geographically that are capable of producing vaccines at short notice. It'll help this pandemic and it's also going to help future pandemics as well as other diseases of public health importance."
11. Close up, WHO seal
“Some high-income countries are entering contracts with vaccine manufacturers that undermine the deals that COVAX has in place and reduce the number of doses COVAX can buy,” WHO chief, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus said on Monday (22 Feb) in Geneva.
“If there are no vaccines to buy, money is irrelevant,” Dr Tedros told reporters in Geneva adding “we still face a gap of at least 22.9 billion dollars to fully finance the ACT Accelerator this year.”
The ACT-Accelerator partnership, launched by WHO and partners in April 2020, has supported the fastest, most coordinated, and successful global effort in history to develop tools to fight a disease.
Tedros said “even if we have the funds, we can only deliver vaccines to poorer countries if high-income countries cooperate in respecting the deals COVAX has done, and the new deals it is doing. This is not a matter of charity. It’s a matter of epidemiology. Unless we end the pandemic everywhere, we will not end it anywhere."
Participating at the press conference via videolink from Washington DC, Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said “the best way to have sustainable capability of being able to respond to outbreaks not only the outbreak of COVID-19 but also the inevitable outbreaks that will also occur in the future is to build capacity within country that is sustainable."
