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UN PhotoWHO / TEDROS GLOBAL HEALTH UPDATE
STORY: WHO / TEDROS GLOBAL HEALTH UPDATE
TRT: 05:48
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 28 NOVEMBER 2024, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
1. Wide shot, press briefing room
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
" WHO welcomes the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that took effect yesterday, and we very much hope it is respected and becomes a lasting peace. Although the fighting has stopped for now, the health needs are huge and will only increase. Those needs are more acute now that winter has arrived."
3. Wide shot, press briefing room
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Abdinasir Abubakar, acting Representative in Lebanon, World Health Organization (WHO):
" The scale of the health care challenge remains enormous. And I think from now until the next few months. I think we have to try to re-establish the health services in the conflict affected areas."
5. Wide shot, press briefing room
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Abdinasir Abubakar, acting Representative in Lebanon, World Health Organization (WHO):
"How to re-establish the health care services in those conflict affected areas? Of course, it will take some time, but I think we are working with the partners, with the Minister of Health to make sure that health services are available for those people who are returning to the conflict affected areas."
7. Wide shot, press briefing room
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"In Gaza, a year ago almost all those displaced by the conflict were sheltered in public buildings or by family members. Now, 90 percent are living in tents. This leaves them vulnerable to respiratory and other diseases."
9. Wide shot, press briefing room
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"At the same time, the ongoing blockade of northern Gaza is limiting the entry of essential resources, including blankets, fuel and food, all of which are already in short supply."
11. Wide shot, press briefing room
12 SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
" WHO and our partners are doing everything we can – everything Israel allows us to do – to deliver health services and supplies."
13. Wide shot, press briefing room
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
" But once again, the ultimate solution to this suffering is not aid, but peace."
15. Wide shot, press briefing room
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Richard Peeperkorn, Representative, Occupied Palestinian Territory, World Health Organization (WHO):
“So, the first top, top, top priority is actually fuel at the moment again. So, we're talking again about the lack of regular supplies of fuel. Without fuel, no humanitarian operation at all. We also again are back in discussing food. There's again massive food shortages in Gaza, both in the South, with skyrocketing prices for whatever is available and in North.”
17. Wide shot, press briefing room
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
"Now to mpox.”
19. Wide shot, press briefing room
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Yesterday, the Emergency Committee issued updated temporary recommendations, adding some new recommendations, and extending or modifying others. As we have said many times, we are not dealing with one outbreak of one virus, but several simultaneous and overlapping outbreaks of different strains, or clades of the virus, affecting different groups in different places.”
21. Wide shot, press briefing room
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“So far this year, 20 countries in Africa have reported more than 14 thousand confirmed cases, including 55 deaths. More than 75 percent of all confirmed cases and deaths in Africa this year have been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the outbreak of clade 1b has now spread to six provinces, including the capital Kinshasa.”
23. Wide shot, press briefing room
24. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“WHO, Africa CDC and our partners are continuing to support countries to respond to these outbreaks and prevent further ones under our joint continental preparedness and response plan."
25. Wide shot, press briefing room
26. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Director (a.i.) Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization (WHO):
“What we really need globally, in the US and abroad is much stronger surveillance in animals, in wild birds, in poultry, in animals that are known to be susceptible to infection, which includes swine, which include dairy cattle to better understand the circulation in these animals, we need much stronger efforts in terms of reducing the risk of infection between animals to new species and to humans. And to do that, we need to protect people who are at risk, people who are exposed.”
27. Wide shot, press briefing room
28. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Director (a.i.) Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization (WHO):
" We have not seen evidence of human to human infection. But again, for each of these human detected cases, we want to see a very thorough investigation taking place."
29. Wide shot, press briefing room
30. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“The Investment Round is about mobilizing the resources to implement WHO's global strategy to help keep the world safe and save 40 million lives over the next four years.”
31. Wide shot, press briefing room
32. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Through a series of events, WHO has received 70 pledges worth 1.7 billion U.S. dollars. Of these pledges, 39 are first-time voluntary contributors to WHO, including 21 from middle-income countries. Some of the world’s poorest countries have contributed, because they see the value that WHO makes on the ground.”
33. Wide shot, press briefing room
34. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Along with other funding agreements and partnerships, we can now count on at least 3.8 billion U.S. dollars, or 53 percent of the voluntary contributions needed for the next four years.”
35. Wide shot, press briefing room
36. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“This is truly significant, because for decades, only a small portion of WHO’s total budget was predictable.”
37. Wide shot, press briefing room
38. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO):
“I thank all countries and partners who have contributed.”
39. Wide shot, press briefing room
World Health Organization (WHO) Chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, today (28 Nov) welcomed the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon and said health needs “are huge and will only increase” and become “more acute now that winter has arrived.”
During a regular WHO press briefing in Geneva, the acting WHO Representative in Lebanon, Dr Abdinasir Abubakar, said, “the scale of the health care challenge remains enormous” and stressed the need “to try to re-establish the health services in the conflict affected areas.”
Abubakar said, “how to re-establish the health care services in those conflict affected areas? Of course, it will take some time, but I think we are working with the partners, with the Minister of Health to make sure that health services are available for those people who are returning to the conflict affected areas.”
Dr Tedros said, “in Gaza, a year ago almost all those displaced by the conflict were sheltered in public buildings or by family members. Now, 90 percent are living in tents. This leaves them vulnerable to respiratory and other diseases.”
He said, “the ongoing blockade of northern Gaza is limiting the entry of essential resources, including blankets, fuel and food, all of which are already in short supply.”
The WHO Director-General said the Organization and partners “are doing everything we can – everything Israel allows us to do – to deliver health services and supplies.”
He said, “the ultimate solution to this suffering is not aid, but peace.”
The WHO’s representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Dr Richard Peeperkorn, said, “the first top, top, top priority is actually fuel at the moment again. So, we're talking again about the lack of regular supplies of fuel. Without fuel, no humanitarian operation at all. We also again are back in discussing food. There's again massive food shortages in Gaza, both in the South, with skyrocketing prices for whatever is available and in North.”
Turning to mpox, Dr Tedros said the Emergency Committee had issued updated temporary recommendations. He said, “we are not dealing with one outbreak of one virus, but several simultaneous and overlapping outbreaks of different strains, or clades of the virus, affecting different groups in different places.”
So far this year, he told journalists, “20 countries in Africa have reported more than 14 thousand confirmed cases, including 55 deaths” adding that “more than 75 percent of all confirmed cases and deaths in Africa this year have been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the outbreak of clade 1b has now spread to six provinces, including the capital Kinshasa.”
WHO’s Director of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, said, “what we really need globally, in the US and abroad is much stronger surveillance in animals, in wild birds, in poultry, in animals that are known to be susceptible to infection, which includes swine, which include dairy cattle to better understand the circulation in these animals, we need much stronger efforts in terms of reducing the risk of infection between animals to new species and to humans. And to do that, we need to protect people who are at risk, people who are exposed.”
Van Kerkhove said, “we have not seen evidence of human-to-human infection. But again, for each of these human detected cases, we want to see a very thorough investigation taking place.”
On WHO finances, Dr Tedros said, “the Investment Round is about mobilizing the resources to implement WHO's global strategy to help keep the world safe and save 40 million lives over the next four years.”
He said, “through a series of events, WHO has received 70 pledges worth 1.7 billion U.S. dollars. Of these pledges, 39 are first-time voluntary contributors to WHO, including 21 from middle-income countries. Some of the world’s poorest countries have contributed, because they see the value that WHO makes on the ground.”
The WHO Director-General said, “along with other funding agreements and partnerships, we can now count on at least 3.8 billion U.S. dollars, or 53 percent of the voluntary contributions needed for the next four years,” which, he added, “is truly significant, because for decades, only a small portion of WHO’s total budget was predictable.”
