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STORY: WHO / HEALTH EMERGENCIES UPDATE
TRT: 06:37
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WHO ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 21 MAY 2024, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior WHO Headquarters
21 MAY 2024, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“In north Gaza, the Al-Awda hospital remains under siege since Sunday. Inside, 148 hospital employees, including administrators, health workers, cleaners, and volunteers, along with 22 patients and their companions, remain trapped. This is the second time Al-Awda Hospital has been besieged since the beginning of the conflict. During the war, the hospital has suffered significant losses, including the deaths of 14 employees and injuries to dozens more.”
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Intense hostilities near Kamal Adwan hospital have compromised its ability to provide care and made it harder for patients to reach. As these are the only two functional hospitals remaining in northern Gaza, ensuring their ability to deliver health services is imperative.”
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Richard Peeperkorn, Representative, Occupied Palestinian Territory, World Health Organization (WHO):
“The Kamal Adwan Hospital is very closely located to Al Awda hospital. And the latest reports from there are even more concerning. So, during last week, during the increased hostilities around the hospital, they got more, an increased influx of injured patients.”
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
9. Dr Richard Peeperkorn, Representative, Occupied Palestinian Territory, World Health Organization (WHO):
“And at the moment, 20 health staff and 13 patients remain. And the efforts currently to what is currently going on, they are currently being evacuated.”
10. Wide shot, press briefing room
11. Dr Richard Peeperkorn, Representative, Occupied Palestinian Territory, World Health Organization (WHO):
“These are, these were functional hospitals. We cannot afford to lose them.”
12. Wide shot, press briefing room
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“In Rafah, heavy military attacks are continuing, and casualties are increasing. People have been given an impossible choice of staying in a place that is being attacked or moving to another place, which is also not safe. Over 800,000 people have now fled but many hundreds of thousands remain.”
14. Wide shot, press briefing room
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Rafah’s hospitals were overwhelmed and the Al-Najjar hospital has had to shut down, meaning there are 220 fewer hospital beds for the injured and the sick. Crossings from Egypt into Gaza have remained closed for two weeks, cutting off the primary pipeline for emergency health supplies into Gaza.”
16. Wide shot, press briefing room
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Six hospitals and nine primary health centres have been impacted. Over 70 shelters have now lost access to their medical points. Daily consultations have fallen by close to 40 percent, and immunization by 50 percent. Approximately 700 seriously ill patients, who would have otherwise been evacuated for medical care elsewhere, are stuck in a war zone.”
18. Wide shot, press briefing room
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“At a time when the people of Gaza are facing starvation, we urge Israel to lift the blockade and to let aid through.”
20. Wide shot, press briefing room
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Without fuel, ambulances can’t reach patients, and life-saving services like dialysis can’t continue.”
22. Wide shot, press briefing room
23. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“What is needed now more than ever is a ceasefire and to get aid flowing into Gaza.”
24. Wide shot, press briefing room
25. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Next week, leaders from around the world will participate in the World Health Assembly. This year could be one of the most significant in our 76-year history as two years of government-led negotiations to strengthen the global pandemic and response apparatus are high on the agenda.”
26. Wide shot, press briefing room
27. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Along with strengthened International Health Regulations, the pandemic agreement remains our best shot, and indeed our generational opportunity, at making sure next time a virus hits, we have a plan to get critical health tools to people quickly, effectively and fairly. It will save lives and I’m asking country leaders to give it one last big push to get it over the line next week.”
28. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO):
“There's a huge commitment on behalf of our member states to take this forward now. But the devil is in the detail. And that detail is currently being discussed between member states. This is a collective security arrangement, this will allow us to better prevent, better prepare and better respond to any future pandemics. But it's only possible through international cooperation, and for those out there who speak about this being in some way a breach of national sovereignty. In fact, this kind of work that we do together is in fact, I think as Gordon Brown said in a recent Op-ed, an absolute expression and definition of your sovereignty. To be truly sovereign means to engage with others confidently, confident in your own independence, when you are truly independent and truly confident in your own nationhood, that is when you reach out and work with others on issues of common concern.”
29. Wide shot, press briefing room
30. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“New data shows sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise in most regions. New syphilis cases among adults aged 15-49 years increased by nearly 1 million in 2022, reaching 8 million. And there were 230,000 syphilis-related deaths. The highest increases occurred in the Region for the Americas and the African Region. New data also show an increase in multi-resistant gonorrhoea. As of 2023, out of 87 countries where enhanced gonorrhoea antimicrobial resistance surveillance was conducted, nine countries reported elevated levels of resistance to the last line of treatment for gonorrhoea. WHO has updated its recommended treatment to reduce the spread of this multi-resistant gonorrhoea strain.”
31. Wide shot, press briefing room
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, today (21 May) told reporters in Geneva that the Al-Awda hospital in North Gaza is “under siege," and 148 hospital employees along with 22 patients and their companions “remain trapped” inside.
Tedros said this was “the second time Al-Awda Hospital has been besieged since the beginning of the conflict.”
The WHO Director-General reported that “intense hostilities near Kamal Adwan hospital have compromised its ability to provide care and made it harder for patients to reach.”
He noted that these are the only two functional hospitals remaining in northern Gaza, and said, “ensuring their ability to deliver health services is imperative.”
The WHO representative in Occupied Palestinian Territory, Dr Richard Peeperkorn said, “the Kamal Adwan Hospital is very closely located to Al Awda hospital. And the latest reports from there are even more concerning,” as during last week, the hospital received, “an increased influx of injured patients.”
Peeperkorn said, “at the moment, 20 health staff and 13 patients remain. And the efforts currently to what is currently going on, they are currently being evacuated.”
He said, “these are, these were functional hospitals. We cannot afford to lose them.”
Dr Tedros said that in Rafah, “heavy military attacks are continuing, and casualties are increasing. People have been given an impossible choice of staying in a place that is being attacked or moving to another place, which is also not safe. Over 800,000 people have now fled but many hundreds of thousands remain.”
He said, “Rafah’s hospitals were overwhelmed and the Al-Najjar hospital has had to shut down, meaning there are 220 fewer hospital beds for the injured and the sick. Crossings from Egypt into Gaza have remained closed for two weeks, cutting off the primary pipeline for emergency health supplies into Gaza.”
Tedros said “six hospitals and nine primary health centres have been impacted. Over 70 shelters have now lost access to their medical points. Daily consultations have fallen by close to 40 percent, and immunization by 50 percent. Approximately 700 seriously ill patients, who would have otherwise been evacuated for medical care elsewhere, are stuck in a war zone.”
He said, “at a time when the people of Gaza are facing starvation, we urge Israel to lift the blockade and to let aid through.”
Without fuel, Tedros continued, “ambulances can’t reach patients, and life-saving services like dialysis can’t continue.”
He said, “what is needed now more than ever is a ceasefire and to get aid flowing into Gaza.”
Turning to the upcoming World Health Assembly, the Director-General said, “next week, leaders from around the world will participate in the World Health Assembly. This year could be one of the most significant in our 76-year history as two years of government-led negotiations to strengthen the global pandemic and response apparatus are high on the agenda.”
He said, “along with strengthened International Health Regulations, the pandemic agreement remains our best shot, and indeed our generational opportunity, at making sure next time a virus hits, we have a plan to get critical health tools to people quickly, effectively and fairly. It will save lives and I’m asking country leaders to give it one last big push to get it over the line next week.
WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director, Dr Michael Ryan, told reporters that “there's a huge commitment on behalf of our member states” to take pandemic prevention forward.
Ryan said, “this is a collective security arrangement, this will allow us to better prevent, better prepare and better respond to any future pandemics. But it's only possible through international cooperation.”
To conclude, Dr Tedros said, “new data shows sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise in most regions. New syphilis cases among adults aged 15-49 years increased by nearly 1 million in 2022, reaching 8 million. And there were 230,000 syphilis-related deaths.”
The highest increases, he said, “occurred in the Region for the Americas and the African Region.”
Tedros continued, “new data also show an increase in multi-resistant gonorrhoea. As of 2023, out of 87 countries where enhanced gonorrhoea antimicrobial resistance surveillance was conducted, nine countries reported elevated levels of resistance to the last line of treatment for gonorrhoea.”
He said, WHO “has updated its recommended treatment to reduce the spread of this multi-resistant gonorrhoea strain.”
