Good morning, good afternoon and good evening,
Today, WHO is publishing the report of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, or SAGO, on the origins of COVID-19.
We’re honoured to be joined today by SAGO’s Chair, Dr Marietjie Venter, who will present SAGO’s findings in a few minutes.
But first, some updates on other health issues around the world.
WHO welcomes the ceasefire agreed between Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we hope it holds.
Iran has reported more than 600 deaths and 5000 injuries, and Israel has reported 28 deaths and more than 3200 injuries.
Between the 13th and 25th of June, WHO has documented nine attacks on health in Israel and five attacks on health in Iran, impacting health services and causing deaths and injuries among health workers and patients.
WHO will continue to work with Israel and Iran, including monitoring radiological and nuclear risks.
This week, WHO participated in a nuclear emergency exercise organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency to test emergency preparedness and response capacities and identify areas in need of improvement.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, the situation is beyond catastrophic.
Only 17 hospitals are functioning even partially out of 36 across the Strip, with no hospitals operating in the North of Gaza or Rafah.
In the last two weeks, 500 people have been killed while seeking food aid at non-UN militarized food distribution sites and routes, resulting in a surge in injuries and taking a severe toll on hospitals in Gaza city, as fuel, water and medical supplies are depleting fast.
Meanwhile, hunger stalks everyone, making them weaker, sicker and more vulnerable. Since the start of this year, an average of 112 children have been admitted every day for treatment of acute malnutrition.
In recent days, WHO managed to retrieve fuel supplies from our warehouses to support hospitals.
Over the past few months, WHO has supplied over 1.7 million litres of fuel to health facilities, ambulance service providers and partners.
This week, WHO delivered medical supplies for the first time since the 2nd of March, with nine trucks carrying essential medical supplies, including blood units.
These supplies will be distributed to priority hospitals in the coming days and more are in route. But it’s only a drop in the ocean given the immense health needs.
Since the conflict began, WHO has supported the evacuation of more than 7300 patients from the Gaza Strip.
But since Israel's blockade began on the 18th of March, we have only been permitted to evacuate 294 patients – a tiny proportion of the more than 10 000 people who still need medical evacuation.
WHO thanks Italy, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States for receiving evacuated patients.
WHO calls for access for food, water, fuel, medical and other aid, at scale, through all possible routes.
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Now to Sudan, the forgotten crisis.
The ongoing civil war means people are dying from a lack of access to health services and medicines.
Ongoing fighting has displaced more people than in any other crisis in the world. Health facilities are either out of service or only providing limited care.
And diseases are spreading fast. Cholera has spread to all but one state of Sudan, with a worrying spike in Khartoum State.
With WHO’s support, the Ministry of Health completed a 10-day cholera vaccination campaign that reached more than 2 million people in Khartoum State, and we are already seeing signs of improvement.
WHO and partners are stepping up the response in other states and exploring options to strengthen the response in the inaccessible states of Darfur and Kordofan through delivery of critical cholera supplies, vaccines and medicines.
Just last week, the Al Mujlad Hospital in West Kordofan was attacked and 40 civilians, including children and health workers, were killed.
I urge the world: don’t forget the people of Sudan. Humanitarians and civilians must be protected at all times.
We need urgent funding, and we need access to make sure people receive the health care they need. And above all, the people of Sudan need peace.
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On Wednesday this week, I was in Brussels for the replenishment of the Gavi Alliance.
Vaccines are among the most powerful innovations in history.
In 1974, WHO founded the Expanded Programme on Immunization – EPI – to harness the power of vaccines for the world.
Since then, EPI has helped to save about 154 million lives.
Since 2000, under-five mortality has dropped by more than half globally, thanks largely to the power of vaccines, and the work of Gavi.
So I was very encouraged that donors pledged more than US$ 9 billion to support Gavi’s work over the next five years.
In addition, Gavi-implementing countries are investing a record US$ 4 billion in their national immunization programmes over the next five years.
This is very positive news at a difficult time in global health, with drastic cuts in aid, and mis- and disinformation about vaccine safety.
Protecting children from life-threatening diseases takes more than just vaccines—it takes trust.
It’s important that parents, educators, health workers and community leaders understand vaccine information clearly.
When people know the facts, they can make better, more confident decisions.
False claims and the distortion of scientific evidence are dangerous.
For WHO, vaccine safety is central to our decision-making.
WHO looks forward to its continuing partnership with Gavi to build on our success and reach more children, with more vaccines, faster than ever before.
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Now returning to our main subject today, the SAGO report on the origins of COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic was the most severe health emergency in a century.
It left an estimated 20 million people dead, wiped at least US$ 10 trillion from the global economy, and caused enormous social and political upheaval.
And we cannot talk about COVID in the past tense. Although the crisis has passed, the virus remains.
It continues to evolve, it continues to kill, and millions of people continue to live with post COVID condition, or long-COVID.
The pandemic taught the world many painful lessons, and over the past five years, WHO, our partners and many countries have put in place many initiatives in response to those lessons.
We established the WHO Hub for Epidemic and Pandemic Intelligence in Germany; the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme in South Africa; the Global Biomanufacturing Training Hub in the Republic of Korea; the BioHub here in Switzerland; the interim Medical Countermeasures Network; the Global Health Emergency Corps; together with the World Bank we established the Pandemic Fund; and more.
As you know, at the World Health Assembly last year, WHO Member States adopted a package of amendments to the International Health Regulations;
And last month, after three-and-a-half years of intense negotiations, they adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement – a landmark instrument of international law to make the world safer from pandemics.
Over the past five years, we have learned a lot about COVID-19, but there is one crucial question about the pandemic that we have not yet answered: how it started.
Understanding how any outbreak, epidemic or pandemic starts is essential for preventing future outbreaks.
It’s also a moral imperative for the sake of those who lose their lives to them.
In late 2020, the World Health Assembly gave WHO the task of studying the origins of COVID-19.
In 2021, I established the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, or SAGO – an international, multidisciplinary panel of 27 independent experts.
SAGO was established with two core mandates: first, to develop a framework for the types of studies that should be performed to understand the source of emerging and reemerging pathogens with epidemic or pandemic potential.
SAGO completed this first part of its work last year.
The second part of its mandate was to take forward the study of the origins of COVID-19, which it has been doing in parallel with the first part of its mandate over the past four years.
Today, WHO is publishing SAGO’s report, and I would like to invite SAGO’s Chair, Dr Marietjie Venter, to present the findings.
Dr Venter is Distinguished Professor and Research Chair for One Health, Surveillance and Vaccines at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Marietjie, you have the floor.
[DR VENTER ADDRESSED THE MEDIA]
Thank you Dr Venter, and thank you so much for your leadership of SAGO over the past four years.
We recognize that this has been a very difficult task, on a very complex and often contentious issue.
I also thank each of the 27 members of SAGO for dedicating their time and expertise to this very important scientific undertaking.
We know that SAGO’s members have not agreed on every point, and that’s to be expected.
Earlier this week, one member of SAGO resigned, and three other members asked for their names to be removed from the report.
SAGO has advanced our understanding of the origins of COVID-19, but much of the information needed to evaluate fully all hypotheses has not been provided.
WHO recognizes that China has shared some of this information, but not everything that we have requested.
Despite our repeated requests, China hasn’t provided hundreds of viral sequences from individuals with COVID-19 early in the pandemic, more detailed information on animals sold at markets in Wuhan, and information on work done and biosafety conditions at laboratories in Wuhan.
WHO is also aware of intelligence reports by other governments around the world on the origins of COVID-19. We have also requested access to those reports.
Neither WHO nor SAGO has yet had access to these reports, or their underlying data.
As things stand, all hypotheses must remain on the table, including zoonotic spillover and lab leak.
We continue to appeal to China and any other country that has information about the origins of COVID-19 to share that information openly, in the interests of protecting the world from future pandemics.
WHO and SAGO remain ready to evaluate any further information that comes to light, and we remain committed to continuing and concluding this vital scientific undertaking.
Tarik, back to you.