Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoWHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
Download
There is no media available to download.
Share
STORY: WHO / COVID-19 UPDATE
TRT: 03:58
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 26 APRIL 2021, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior WHO Headquarters
26 APRIL 2021, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Programme (WHO):
"Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to intensify. Cases have now increased for the ninth straight week, and deaths have increased for the sixth straight week. To put it in perspective, there were almost as many cases globally last week as in the first five months of the pandemic."
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Programme (WHO):
"And, the situation in India is beyond heartbreaking. WHO is doing everything we can, providing critical equipment and supplies, including thousands of oxygen concentrators, prefabricated mobile field hospitals and laboratory supplies. As I mentioned on Friday, WHO has redeployed more than 2600 staff to support the response on the ground, providing support for surveillance, technical advice, and vaccination efforts."
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical lead, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Programme (WHO):
"The situation in India is really heartbreaking, as the Director-General has said. And the exponential growth that we've seen in case numbers is really, truly astonishing. We have seen similar trajectories of increases in transmission in a number of countries. It has not been at the same scale and it has not had the same level of impact and burden on the health care system that we've seen in India. But we have seen similar trajectories where the incidence was almost vertical if you looked at that epi curve. This can happen in a number of countries, in any countries if we let our guard down. I'm not saying that India has let its guard down, but I'm saying we're in a fragile situation. Nine weeks of case incidents increasing, almost 5.7 million cases reported last week. And that is certainly an underestimate of the true number of cases of infections that have occurred in the last week."
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Programme (WHO):
"But even as COVID-19 vaccines give us hope of light at the end of the tunnel, the pandemic has caused severe disruptions to immunization services around the world. New WHO data show that as a result of COVID-19, 60 immunization campaigns are currently suspended in 50 countries. That means about 228 million children are vulnerable – right now – to deadly, vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, yellow fever and polio. Measles campaigns are the most affected, accounting for 23 of the postponed campaigns. Many measles campaigns have now been delayed for more than a year."
10. Wide shot, press briefing room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Programme (WHO):
"The latest WHO pulse survey shows that routine immunization services were disrupted in more than a third of countries in the first quarter of 2021. While this represents a significant improvement over last year, it remains a serious concern. Gaps in vaccination coverage are already having grave real-world consequences. Serious measles outbreaks have occurred in several countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and Yemen. And the risk of measles outbreaks is mounting elsewhere, as more and more children miss out on the vaccines they so urgently need."
12. Wide shot, press briefing room
World Health Programme (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today (26 Apr) said the COVID-19 pandemic continues to intensify at a global level and noted that “there were almost as many cases globally last week as in the first five months of the pandemic."
Tedros said, “cases have now increased for the ninth straight week, and deaths have increased for the sixth straight week.”
In India, he said, the situation “is beyond heartbreaking.”
WHO is providing critical equipment and supplies, including thousands of oxygen concentrators, prefabricated mobile field hospitals and laboratory supplies, and has redeployed more than 2,600 staff “to support the response on the ground, providing support for surveillance, technical advice, and vaccination efforts."
WHO’s COVID-19 Technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said, "the exponential growth” of cases in India is “truly astonishing.”
Kerkhove said, “we're in a fragile situation. Nine weeks of case incidents increasing, almost 5.7 million cases reported last week. And that is certainly an underestimate of the true number of cases of infections that have occurred in the last week."
Tedros said, “even as COVID-19 vaccines give us hope of light at the end of the tunnel, the pandemic has caused severe disruptions to immunization services around the world. New WHO data show that as a result of COVID-19, 60 immunization campaigns are currently suspended in 50 countries. That means about 228 million children are vulnerable – right now – to deadly, vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, yellow fever and polio. Measles campaigns are the most affected, accounting for 23 of the postponed campaigns. Many measles campaigns have now been delayed for more than a year."
He said, “routine immunization services were disrupted in more than a third of countries in the first quarter of 2021” and added that “serious measles outbreaks have occurred in several countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and Yemen. And the risk of measles outbreaks is mounting elsewhere, as more and more children miss out on the vaccines they so urgently need."
World Immunization Week 2021, from 24 to 30 April, highlights the need to build public trust in the value of all vaccines and help build long-term support for immunization.
