Watch: World Health Organization holds news conference on surge in Mpox

e e August on global health issues let me introduce uh our colleagues who are in the room we have Dr tedos adom gesus W2 director General Dr Maria vov director at interim epidemic and pandemic preparen and prevention Dr abdar Rahman Muhammad directed at interim alert and respon resp coordination Dr Teresa Zakaria incident manager for conflict escalation in Israel and occupied Palestinian territory and Dr deos mbong gizi director Health Products policy and standards we have also a certain number of expert joining online I will introduce them when it's time but let me just uh tell you that we have Dr Rick peper W representative for op and Dr Ahmed jaari emro director of the polio program and we have also Dr shii sahbani Who is the W representative for Sudan now without any further delay I would like to give the floor to Dr tedos for his introduction remark Dr tedos you have the floor thank you thank you Fila good morning good afternoon and good evening first an update on the empo outbreaks in Africa more than 18,000 suspected cases of empo have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo so far this year with 629 days that includes more than 5,000 cases and 31 days from the Eastern provinces of North and South kibu where the new CL one B stain has been spreading the number of reported cases of C 1B has been rising rapidly for several weeks fortunately relatively few days have been reported in recent weeks in addition 258 cases of clay 1B have been confirmed in Burundi four in Rwanda four in Uganda two in Kenya and one each in Sweden and Thailand we also remain concerned about outbreaks of Cade 1A in other parts of DRC this morning I returned from DRZ where yesterday I had the honor to meet with his Excellency president Felix sishi to discuss the outbreaks I thank the president for his lead leadership in the response to the outbreaks demonstrated by the government's commitment of1 million us to the response and for his leadership on the response I assured him of who's full support together with the Africa CDC and other partners I also had the opportunity to meet with the United Nations country team where we discuss coordination of the empo response among un agencies under the government's leadership we discussed the critical importance of clear communication with people at risk of empo and strong engagement with communities and local Partners I also met with global and local Health Partners to discuss scaling up routin immunization for other diseases including polio misles and malaria and mobilizing Frontline polio workers to support the empo response wh 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're working to review those applications as fast as possible the safety and efficacy of vaccines are our highest priority we will not take shortcuts the two main buyers of vaccines for low-income countries gab and UNICEF require who emergency use listing to buy vaccines for us in countries that have not issued their own National regulatory approval last week I gave gab and UNICEF the green line to proceed with procuring vaccines in parallel with the eul process however who emergency use listing is not a barrier to vaccines being deployed in DRC drc's medicines regulator approved both vaccines in June of this year and the government has requested bilateral donations of vaccines from high income countries with large stock PS together with the Africa CDC who has has also helped to secure donations from the European Union and some of its member states wh is working with the Africa CDC gab UNICEF sepi and Hera to set up a coordination mechanism to allocate the donated vaccines and increase access in affected countries yesterday we also invited manufacturers of empo Diagnostics to submit an expression of interest for emergency use listing today we have received the first expression of Interest over the past two days we have also convened a meeting of researchers to identify research priorities and to foster a coordinated and collaborative approach to the development of vaccines Diagnostics and Therapeutics it's vital to stress that although vaccines are a powerful tool they are far from the only tool there are many things that wh and our partners are doing to prevent and diagnose infections and treat the sick the outbreak of Cl 1 is occurring in one of the poorest and most insecure regions of DRC complicating the response despite these challenges hundreds of w Personnel are on the ground in DRC and the other affected countries working with our partners to stop transmission and bring these outbreaks under control under the government's leadership and with the government leadership and close cooperation between party into the long running insecurity especially in the Eastern DRC now to Gaza on Sunday wh and our partners will begin a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza in which we aim to reach more than 640,000 children under 10 years of age the campaign will involve two dos 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 do will arrive soon we have trained more than 2,18 health workers and community outreach workers to provide vaccination and inform communities about the campaign our aim is to reach at least 90% vaccination coverage during each round of the campaign to stop the current outbreak and prevent the international spread of polium 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 I thank the Palestine Ministry of Health UNICEF and unra and others for their partnership in this campaign I welcome the commitment to humanitarian poses in specific areas to allow the vaccination campaign to be carried out due to insecurity damage to roads and infrastructure and population movement m m and displacement 3 days in each area is unlikely to be enough to achieve adequate coverage vaccination coverage will be monitored throughout the campaign and it has been agreed that vaccination will be extended by one day wherever necessary the vaccination teams must be protected and allowed to conduct the campaign safely we urge all parties to ensure their protection and that of health facilities and children humanitarian POS are welcome but ultimately the only solution to safeguard the health of the children of Gaza is a ceas fire the best medicine is peace 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 Deni malaria and mes Are Taking Lives and putting further pressure on the health system who is particularly concerned about the situation in Al fasher and surrounding areas in North darur with farming already reported from the zum Camp who has verified more than 100 attacks on Health Care since the conflict began the recent attack on Elin Hospital in E darur killed 16 civilians including children and the nurse the attack damaged the dialysis and Gynecology departments and stocks of life-saving vaccines and other supplies w is working with UNICEF and partners to support the Federal Ministry of Health as it responds to multiple health challenges this includes rolling out essential vaccines to children and providing technical operational and financial support to the Cera response preposition colera and other Essential Medical Supplies helped JumpStart the response who recently deployed 51,000 doses of oral Cera vaccines in Cella state which has a high number of cases the international coordinating group on vaccine allocation has approved a request for more than 450,000 dos to be sent to scale up the vaccination campaign in Cala State last week five tracks from H and partners delivered over 175 tons of Health supplies these supplies including medicines diagnostic materials and nutrition supplies will be used by humanitarian Partners to provide emergency Health Care treat infectious disease and help Elevate the threat of malnutrition but much more is needed to stop diseases from spreading and avert fing in parts of the country a ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access is the best way to stop the Health crisis worsening finally earlier this week I was in brazaville for the annual Regional committee meeting of the wh regional office for Africa the committee nominated a new Regional director Dr fostul of Tanzania to succeed Dr shidi moti whose second term end in January next year I congratulate drul on his nomination and I thank Dr Muti for her 10 years of leadership dedication vision and commitment to serving the people of Africa the regional committee also hosted a pledging event for The Who investment round which aims to mobilize the sustainable funding we need to implement our work over the next four years I have asked every member state to contribute according to its means and every partner I'm deeply grateful to the 14 African member states and partners who pledged more than 45 million us to the investment round Africa is leading by example I call on other regions to follow fedil back to you thank you Dr tedras and now I would like to open the floor to journalist questions if you want to ask a question raise your hand using the raise your hand icon and unmute yourself um first uh journalist is Helen brenell from stat Helen can you hear me hi f thank you very much um yes my question uh relates to empo vaccines at the last uh press conference uh Maria van kirov suggested that countries should coordinate with who if they are giving um donations of vaccine because who needs to have a sense of of how much vaccine is being offered and where do you have an updated number at this point about how many doses have been donated or are being donated thank you drov yeah thanks very much I also have um we have have some people online who I'm sure will want to supplement this so thanks very much Helen for the question and thanks for flagging the request that we had made to work with us um to set up this allocation mechanism as the DG mentioned in his speech just now we are setting up this access and allocation mechanism working with a number of different partners on this it's really important that we coordinate um because there are a limited number of supplies so far um and these vaccines need to reach the countries at risk um they need to be used in a targeted way um in the DRC in Bundi in countries that are facing this upsurge and that's 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're coming from which vaccines when they expire when they might get into country the conditions um all of that needs to be coordinated so that we can work with countries so that the countries take the ownership of the use of these vaccines and they use them um when they become available as part of the response so maybe I could pass to my colleague Tim who can answer more on that well thank you Mar and thank you Helen yeah I think um we have a good understanding about the existing pledges that have been expressed by different countries and entities uh for this uh response however pledges need to be turned into donation following then the discussion and agreement and negotiation around that so these pledges will turn into donation at different time frames and we have a good understanding on know the different quantities that will be available in the coming weeks and months but also uh ples that will probably materialize towards you know in the next two to three months and I think that's important then to match what we know will be coming down that pipeline uh to match with the different uh uh needs on the ground as the countries are preparing now for different uh uh vaccination uh uh strategies thanks uh thank you uh just to give you the exact title of uh timan his unit had high impact events preparedness now I would like to give the floor to Emma F from writers Emma Emma can you hear me yes um the unmute button took a second to come up uh I wanted to ask about um the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza please I'm wondering how satisfied you are with the plans for a pause I understand that not all of Gaza will be subject to a pause so is that going to be workable from your point of view or are there shortcomings with the plan and secondly just a compliment please could you um give a little bit more information about the company that's expressed interest in the empo vaccine thank you um thank you Emma I would like to invite Dr peeper corn to take your first question Dr peeper corn thank you very much um so first of all greetings from Gaza greetings from the of Cabella and I think um as we speak uh there actually the technical team uh the technical polio team is meeting here in the wh office where we have established an emergency Operation Center uh just actually uh had a meeting with my UNICEF colleague uh as well and it is actually inspiring I want to say inspiring to see it's the the people from the Ministry of Health uh wh UNICEF and and other partners many other partners Etc and it was when I arrived up till late yesterday evening Etc and the whole day fine-tuning the campaign now the I think it's an a very good question so are we are we happy are we confident with this campaign that's actually basically what you are saying uh let be very clear it's not ideal but nothing is ideal in in Gaza and I think we have an have an agreement where we all agreed as technical partners that we can work with and we think it is feasible if all the pieces of the puzzle are in place and I think the DG was very clear on those pieces of those uh of that puzzle we will do we will start with Central Gaza then we move to the south then we move to the north everywhere we do three days of campaign every day and the Poo program we also got some other polio experts in from wh and UNICEF also to assist this is one of the programs which analyzes very well they analyze every day we analyze where are we where what went well what went wrong where where are we missing children where are we doing well so this is an an an a combination and an an a combination fortunately I mean and that is I think we we cannot do hous toh house uh campaign that's what she would normally want uh for whole reasons we know we cannot do house to house but what did what did we do what we do did we plan we trained 2,000 and 180 health workers and Community outre workers we managed to have 392 almost 400 fix points where the polio vaccine will be delivered from and we have almost 300 mobile teams now this is a massive operation and the security is Paramount I think in the DG been very clear we urge all party to ensure protection as has been agreed to and discussed that the parents can bring the children to those fix points and in places where that is difficult we will we will go with our mobile teams with the mobile teams to reach those children it's an ambitious targets we need to reach 90% plus but I think if if everything is in place as we discussed the we have focused Community strategy and and and the community communication strategy and that's in place as well so we are really looking forward to start coming Sunday three days in a central everyday analysis as the DG pointed out we are almost sure that we will need an extra day if an agreement for that we will constantly see where we have to put in place the mobile teams Etc then we move to the southern Zone and consequently to the northern zone so yeah a feasible and a workable approach Etc and we are all backing this we are actually they're inspiring to see how many people are actually excited about this we'll push this forward of course this pieces of the personal will have to fit together and and we count on everyone on this all parties all parties we will count on them over to you thank you so much uh Dr peeper corn Dr tedras yeah just uh one line I think uh Rick has already covered it very well um what I would like to say is first of all we welcome the POS and second we hope all parties will respect that but at the same time uh we don't think that POS is enough and we still insist on a ceasefire because ultimately the best medicine and the best vaccine is actually peace that's just what I would like to add and Pila back to you thank you Dr Tedros for the second question of Emma I would like to invite Dr deos mongi to to answer this question on the emergency use listing of for uh empo vaccines over to you thank you f as uh the DG mentioned two companies submitted completed their submission of applications to wh for emergency use listing review on the 23rd and these are Bavarian noic from Denmark and C biologics from Japan there are some other companies that are in discussions but these are still under screening and we have not yet confirmed their actual acceptance of their submission so those at the moment we are not in position to discuss thank you thank you so much I would like now to invite anas pedo from aan France press to ask to ask the next question anas yes hi good afternoon everybody uh it's a question also on embo vaccines um I wanted to ask you if you could be more specific on how many pledges uh where uh for DRC where has been made for DRC and when do you think the first empo vaccines uh could arrive in thec because I I heard that um before you say that the plages would materialize in two three months would that be uh not too late maybe I don't know and um once the the vaccines are available what kind of uh Logistics difficulties you think uh the distribution and transportation will face thank you thank you anas I would like to invite timan to answer this question Tim oh thank you so um to be clear on some of these pledges uh we are in discussion with the partners that are actually uh donating uh some of this vaccine and we have an overview around some of these uh quantities that will be uh available in the coming days once the country is also ready to receive and Implement these so what we understand right now is from uh Hera that they have procured 175,000 doses of mvn vaccine in addition the manufacturer Bavarian Nordic is uh donating another 40,000 doses uh to these quantities that makes up about 200 13,000 doses that we understand are imminently uh available to be dispatched uh to uh effective regions and then as we look further subsequently there are other pledges but we understand that still needs a couple of weeks for them to be agreed on the final uh administrative uh processes to turn pledges into donations over uh thank you I think that uh Dr V would like to elaborate on this yeah thanks so in addition to what Tim was saying about the numbers of Doses and when they can get into countries we're also working um with our regional colleagues our country off office colleagues the Ministry of Health on the vaccine delivery as part of the response so there are detailed plans that are being developed this is based on the epidemiology of what's happening in the DRC um there are different modes of transmission there are different populations that are affected currently being developed there are plans that exist but I also want to highlight there's a lot of questions about vaccines and I anticipate many journalists will will continue to ask about the vaccines but as the DG has pointed out and as we we point out in our Global strategic preparedness response plan as is being highlighted in the Continental plans vaccines are only one part of the solution we were I was fortunate to be with uh the director General in DRC yesterday um where we met with the UN country teams as he mentioned mentioned and almost as much as they asked about vaccines they asked about strong clear communication about prevention about preventing the spread how can we have the right messages targeted to the people who are at risk and so our our teams are working with UNICEF we're working with many different partners um uh I shouldn't mention one if I don't mention them all because as who we we work in Partnership um with not just International agencies but Civil Society local Partners to make sure that those m Mees Reach people who are at risk um and so there's a lot of work that's happening there and I just want to emphasize that right now even when vaccines aren't available and it's going to take some time for the vaccines to reach those who are most at risk the right messages can be reaching the right as risk at risk populations so we're working to make sure that those messages are targeted they're tailored focusing on prevention focusing on preventing this spread in the complex context in which these empo outbreaks are happening Dr Ted yeah thank you uh thank you so on on the vaccines um as you have heard from DS um one thing that has to be clear is the um for the eul we need complete information and the information submitted until last Friday was partial and last Friday we got from both companies the additional inform information we were asking for so we couldn't issue eul before all the information arrives because we have to um have all the information required before we proceed uh on top of that I think um since we have now the complete information the eul can be ready uh in the next two weeks because it's already a week now since we have received the complete information so so but still um we don't need to wait you know until two weeks before we proceed with procurements and that's why gab and UNICEF are proceeding with procurements side by side with the process of the eul so I think that has to be clear and then on the vaccines um some of the vaccines as team said will arrive in the next few days in the RC uh while I was in kinasa I met with Minister Kaa and also with Jean Casa the um DG Jean Casa of Africa CDC and the things that should be done from Africa CC side from the country side from wh side uh and other partners side has been done and we hope hope to have the first um delivery in the next few days and then it will build up um and that's why the October issue that you said um but it's not um I don't think anybody said you know the vaccines will arrive in October the the part part of the shipment will arrive actually in the next few days and then we'll we we'll we'll build up but considering the number of case and so on most of the allocation of course will be in in the RC and I would like this opportunity to thank the donor countries and uh institutions for for for for the vaccines and that will help in our response but it's not just vaccines alone we are already uh implementing the other methods which are very very important so vaccine is one among the tools and we're not just waiting for the vaccines while Expediting the vaccines we're doing uh what should be done under the leadership of the government and the leadership ownership and Leadership of government is important be it DRC or or other countries which I have already outlined that reported uh empx uh and not only the ownership and Leadership by by the government but Community Partnership is also Central because as we all know outbreak start and end in communities so government ownership and Leadership strong Community involvement and partnership is important and then the implementation or use of all the tools that we have at hand uh including vaccines one thing that I really commended is the leadership by the DRC government especially the president because um he put already 10 million us do on the table to respond without waiting for uh donors to to to move and that's an indicator of ownership and and and Leadership and that is very very important to put the resources required while mobilizing Partners to to supplement to supplement uh to that that's a major indicator of ownership and and Leadership and I hope uh all countries who reporting empx will do the same thing it's only through ensuring government leadership and ownership that we can stop this virus of course coupled with as I said um strong Community mobilization and appropriate use of uh the tools while vaccines would be the additional tool Fila uh thank thank you I would like now to invite uh Gabrielle Emmanuel from NPR to ask the next question Gabrielle hi thank you very much um I I guess I had a bit of a broader question one is that as we all know there's been a lot of frustration about um the time it's taken to get vaccines um empx vaccines and I've heard a lot of people make this analogy that to covid and and the lack of resources then that in Africa and I wanted to kind of get a sense of how we're making sure we're not falling into the same uh pitfalls and hurdles of from back then um also and not just related to vaccines but also related to diagnostic tests and other other mechanisms to to care for what's happening and and then a more specific question I'm curious you mentioned about the rising cases I was wondering if that's happening in specific populations um in addition to the countries you mentioned thank you very much so thanks I I can start with that question so I we're not in the same situation we were in when Co began um the capacities that countries have um particularly around back tracing clinical care e emergency operation centers across the entire pillars of of the response that they expanded and strengthened during coidic fever outbreaks so we're not in the same situation with regards to vaccines um there's a lot of work that is happening that needs to continue um it was emphasized during Co to make sure that we we not only address access e people young through the Epi programs but all the way through older adults through with covid vaccine through that life course can be utilized for empo there's a lot of experience in the DRC itself doing vac vaccination for Ebola all of that can be leveraged for the use of vaccines for empo but again I want to highlight that the use of vaccines as part of this