Good morning, good afternoon and good night.
This Thursday marks six months since the WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency of international interest.
This is the sixth time that a global health emergency has been declared under the International Health Regulations, but it is easily the most serious.
Almost 16 million cases have been reported to the WHO and more than 640,000 deaths.
And the pandemic continues to accelerate.
In the past 6 weeks, the total number of cases has roughly doubled.
When he declared a public health emergency of international interest on 30th In January, the highest level of alarm under international law, there were fewer than 100 cases outside of China and there were no deaths.
As required by the International Health Regulations, I will meet with the Emergency Committee later this week to reevaluate the pandemic and advise me accordingly.
COVID-19 has changed our world. It has brought people, communities and nations together, and has separated them.
It has shown what humans are capable of, both positively and negatively.
We have learned a great deal and are still learning.
But although our world has changed, the fundamental pillars of the response have not: political leadership and informing, engaging and listening to communities.
Nor do they have the basic measures necessary to suppress transmission and save lives: finding, isolating, testing, and treating cases; and track and quarantine your contacts.
Stay away from others, wash your hands, avoid crowded and closed areas, and wear a mask where recommended.
When these measures are followed, the cases decrease. Where they are not, cases go up.
Countries and communities that have followed this advice carefully and consistently have done well, whether in preventing large-scale outbreaks, such as Cambodia, New Zealand, Rwanda, Thailand, Vietnam, and islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean, or in reducing large outbreaks. control such as Canada, China, Germany and the Republic of Korea.
These are just a few examples, but there are many more that could have been listed.
The bottom line is that one of the most fundamental ingredients in stopping this virus is determination and a willingness to make tough decisions to keep ourselves and others safe.
In the past 6 months, WHO has worked tirelessly to help countries prepare for and respond to this virus.
I am immensely proud of our organization, WHO, and its incredible people and efforts.
Within days of learning about the first cases in China, we published a comprehensive guide on how to find, assess, and treat cases and protect health workers.
We also published the first protocol to test the virus, and we immediately started working with a manufacturer in Germany to produce tests and send them to countries most in need.
We summon hundreds of scientists to develop a roadmap for research.
We have brought together thousands of experts from around the world, in many disciplines, to analyze evolving evidence and turn it into a guide.
Never before has WHO produced such a large volume of technical advice in such a short period.
More than 4 million people have enrolled in our training courses through the OpenWHO.org online learning platform.
We launched the Solidarity Trial to find quick answers about which therapies are the most effective.
We launched Solidarity Flights to ship millions of test kits and tons of protective gear worldwide.
We launched the Solidarity Response Fund, which so far has mobilized more than US $ 225 million from more than 563,000 individuals, companies and philanthropies.
In addition, we mobilized more than $ 1 billion from Member States and other generous donors to support countries.
We work with community organizations, religious groups, the public and private sectors, technology companies, and many other groups to combat the infodemic.
And we’ve formed the ACT Accelerator to accelerate the development, production, and equitable distribution of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapies.
We have done an incredible amount, but we still have a long and hard road ahead.
And we know that the impacts of the pandemic are felt far beyond the suffering caused by the virus itself.
Many essential health services have been discontinued, including for hepatitis.
Tomorrow is world hepatitis day.
There are five main strains of the hepatitis virus.
The two most common types, B and C, cause liver damage and liver cancer.
An estimated 325 million people worldwide live with hepatitis B or C, and each year these viruses kill approximately 1.3 million people.
In 2016, the World Health Assembly adopted the global hepatitis strategy, setting the world’s first hepatitis elimination targets.
The strategy calls for the elimination of viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030, reducing new infections by 90% and mortality by 65%.
Even talking about eliminating hepatitis would have once seemed like a fantasy.
But the new drugs have transformed hepatitis C from a life-threatening disease to one that can be cured in 12 weeks in most cases, although in many countries drugs are still expensive and out of reach for many patients.
Still, many countries are making incredible progress.
Egypt has screened more than 60 million people for hepatitis C and linked those who tested positive for free.
We are also seeing some progress with the elimination of hepatitis B, for example in Asia, where childhood hepatitis B vaccination coverage is high, including the most important birth dose.
Today we celebrate more good news:
New research led by WHO and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine shows that together we have achieved the global goal set in 2000 to reduce the prevalence of hepatitis B infections in children under the age of five to less than 1% by 2020 .
This historic achievement means that we will dramatically reduce the number of cases of liver cancer and cirrhosis in future generations.
However, progress is hampered by low coverage of the hepatitis B vaccine in some regions, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where many children still miss the most important dose of vaccine at birth.
One of the most important challenges we face in eliminating hepatitis B is mother-to-child transmission.
Tomorrow, WHO will launch new guidelines for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B.
We call on countries, especially those with the highest burden, to implement these new guidelines as an important springboard on the road to eliminating hepatitis.
That path has been made more difficult by COVID-19.
Prevention, testing and treatment services have been disrupted, supply chains are disrupted, limited financial and human resources are being diverted, and the political focus has shifted to containing the pandemic and economic recovery.
All of which means that there is a real risk that we may lose the gains we have made.
Like many diseases, hepatitis is not just a health problem. It is a huge social and economic burden.
As we mark 6 months after the declaration of the global health emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic is illustrating that health is not a reward for development, it is the basis of social, economic and political stability.
We are not prisoners of the pandemic. Each of us can make a difference. The future is in our hands.
WHO remains fully committed to serving all people and all countries with science, solutions and solidarity.
Thank you.
