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STORY: WHO / GLOBAL HEALTH PRESSER
TRT: 6:10
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 30 AUGUST 2024, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, press briefing room
2. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“More than 18,000 suspected cases of mpox have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo so far this year, with 629 deaths. That includes more than 5,000 cases and 31 deaths from the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, where the new clade 1b strain has been spreading. The number of reported cases of clade 1b has been rising rapidly for several weeks.”
3. Wide shot, press briefing room
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Fortunately, relatively few deaths have been reported in recent weeks. In addition, 258 cases of clade 1b have been confirmed in Burundi, 4 in Rwanda, 4 in Uganda, 2 in Kenya and 1 each in Sweden and Thailand. We also remain concerned about outbreaks of clade 1a in other parts of DRC.”
5. Wide shot, press briefing room
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“WHO is working to accelerate access to, and delivery of vaccines. The manufacturers of the two vaccines submitted their applications for emergency use listing last Friday, the 23rd of August, and we are working to review those applications as fast as possible. The safety and efficacy of vaccines are our highest priority. We will not take short cuts.”
7. Wide shot, press briefing room
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Director (a.i.) Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization (WHO):
“It's really important that we coordinate, because there are limited numbers of supplies so far, and these vaccines need to reach the countries at risk. They need to be used in a targeted way in the DRC, in Burundi, in countries facing this upsurge and that is really critical at the moment. But we are working with partners to set up this allocation mechanism, looking at the donations, not only where they are coming from, which vaccines, when they expire, when they might get into country, the conditions, all of that needs to be coordinated so we can work with countries so that they take the ownership of the use of the vaccines and they use them when they become available as part of the response.”
9. Wide shot, press briefing room
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“On Sunday, WHO and our partners will begin a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, in which we aim to reach more than 640,000 children under ten years of age. The campaign will involve two doses of vaccine, given in two rounds, four weeks apart. More than 1.2 million doses of vaccine have been delivered to Gaza, and 400,000 more doses will arrive soon.”
11. Wide shot, press briefing room
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Our aim is to reach at least 90 percent vaccination coverage during each round of the campaign to stop the current outbreak and prevent the international spread of polio. The campaign will be delivered in a phased approach over three days in each round, starting with Central Gaza followed by South Gaza, and then North Gaza.”
13. Wide shot, press briefing room
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative, occupied Palestinian territory:
“We trained 2,180 health workers and community outreach workers. We managed to have 392, almost 400 fixed points where the polio vaccine will be delivered from. And we have almost 300 mobile teams. Now, this is a massive operation.”
15. Wide shot, press briefing room
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“First of all, we welcome the pause. And second, we hope all parties will respect that. But at the same time, we don't think that the pause is enough, and we still insist on a ceasefire because ultimately, the best medicine and the best vaccine is actually peace.”
17. Wide shot, press briefing room
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Teresa Zakaria, Technical Officer, Health Emergencies Interventions, World Health Organization (WHO):
“So we are seeing polio, we are also sure many other pathogens are spreading undetected, and it's a matter of time until we see a surge and many more diseases spreading really out of control. What we wish though is for the polio vaccination campaign to be successful, which will also be then an important milestone for us to know yes, humanitarian operations can be scaled up for the entire population of Gaza.”
19. Wide shot, press briefing room
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Now to Sudan, where fighting has now been continuing for 500 days. Hospitals are shutting down, and life-saving supplies are running out. Outbreaks of cholera, dengue, malaria and measles are taking lives and putting further pressure on the health system. WHO is particularly concerned about the situation in El Fasher and surrounding areas in North Darfur, with famine already reported from the Zamzam Camp. WHO has verified more than 100 attacks on health care since the conflict began.”
21. Wide shot, press briefing room
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“WHO recently deployed 51,000 doses of oral cholera vaccines in Kassala State, which has a high number of cases. The International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Allocation has approved a request for more than 450,000 doses to be sent to scale up the vaccination campaign in Kassala State.”
23. Wide shot, press briefing room
24. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“But much more is needed to stop diseases from spreading and avert famine in parts of the country. A ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access is the best way to stop the health crisis worsening.”
25. Wide shot, press briefing room
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that more than 18,000 suspected cases of mpox have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) so far this year, with 629 deaths, adding that “WHO is working to accelerate access to, and delivery of vaccines.”
Speaking to reporters in Geneva today (30 Aug), the head of WHO said, “More than 18,000 suspected cases of mpox have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo so far this year, with 629 deaths. That includes more than 5,000 cases and 31 deaths from the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, where the new clade 1b strain has been spreading. The number of reported cases of clade 1b has been rising rapidly for several weeks.”
“Fortunately,” Tedros continued, “relatively few deaths have been reported in recent weeks. In addition, 258 cases of clade 1b have been confirmed in Burundi, 4 in Rwanda, 4 in Uganda, 2 in Kenya and 1 each in Sweden and Thailand. We also remain concerned about outbreaks of clade 1a in other parts of DRC.”
“WHO is working to accelerate access to, and delivery of vaccines,” the Organization’s chief said.
He continued, “The manufacturers of the two vaccines submitted their applications for emergency use listing last Friday, the 23rd of August, and we are working to review those applications as fast as possible. The safety and efficacy of vaccines are our highest priority. We will not take short cuts.”
WHO’s Dr Maria Van Kerkhove also spoke to reporters.
She reiterated, “It's really important that we coordinate, because there are limited numbers of supplies so far, and these vaccines need to reach the countries at risk. They need to be used in a targeted way in the DRC, in Burundi, in countries facing this upsurge and that is really critical at the moment.”
Kerkhove continued, “But we are working with partners to set up this allocation mechanism, looking at the donations, not only where they are coming from, which vaccines, when they expire, when they might get into country, the conditions, all of that needs to be coordinated so we can work with countries so that they take the ownership of the use of the vaccines and they use them when they become available as part of the response.”
Turning to Gaza, the WHO Director-General said, “On Sunday, WHO and our partners will begin a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, in which we aim to reach more than 640,000 children under ten years of age. The campaign will involve two doses of vaccine, given in two rounds, four weeks apart. More than 1.2 million doses of vaccine have been delivered to Gaza, and 400,000 more doses will arrive soon.”
Tedros added, “Our aim is to reach at least 90 percent vaccination coverage during each round of the campaign to stop the current outbreak and prevent the international spread of polio. The campaign will be delivered in a phased approach over three days in each round, starting with Central Gaza followed by South Gaza, and then North Gaza.”
WHO Representative in occupied Palestinian territory, Dr Richard Peeperkorn, also spoke to reporters.
He said, “We trained 2,180 health workers and community outreach workers. We managed to have 392, almost 400 fixed points where the polio vaccine will be delivered from. And we have almost 300 mobile teams. Now, this is a massive operation.”
The WHO chief Tedros also said, “First of all, we welcome the pause. And second, we hope all parties will respect that. But at the same time, we don't think that the pause is enough, and we still insist on a ceasefire because ultimately, the best medicine and the best vaccine is actually peace.”
WHO’s Dr Teresa Zakaria told reporters, “So we are seeing polio, we are also sure many other pathogens are spreading undetected, and it's a matter of time until we see a surge and many more diseases spreading really out of control.”
She added, “What we wish though is for the polio vaccination campaign to be successful, which will also be then an important milestone for us to know yes, humanitarian operations can be scaled up for the entire population of Gaza.”
Moving onto Sudan, the WHO Director-General said that the fighting has now been continuing for 500 days. “Hospitals are shutting down, and life-saving supplies are running out. Outbreaks of cholera, dengue, malaria and measles are taking lives and putting further pressure on the health system.”
He added, “WHO is particularly concerned about the situation in El Fasher and surrounding areas in North Darfur, with famine already reported from the Zamzam Camp. WHO has verified more than 100 attacks on health care since the conflict began.”
Tedros also said, “WHO recently deployed 51,000 doses of oral cholera vaccines in Kassala State, which has a high number of cases. The International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Allocation has approved a request for more than 450,000 doses to be sent to scale up the vaccination campaign in Kassala State.”
The Director-General also said, “But much more is needed to stop diseases from spreading and avert famine in parts of the country. A ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access is the best way to stop the health crisis worsening.”
