Post- presser links :: WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at ACANU press corps

WHO Media: WHO Director-General's opening remarks at ACANU press corps – 15 December 2023 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Friday, 15 December 2023

Post- presser links: WHO Press Briefing

Note: WHO's Director-General spoke to journalists today at a special briefing for reporters accredited to the UN in Geneva. Below is the text of his remarks, links to the video, and additional resources.

WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at ACANU press corps briefing – 15 December 2023

Good afternoon, everyone, and a very warm welcome to our friends from ACANU. And thank you to the Chair for your message.

It’s a pleasure to welcome you to WHO for our final media briefing for 2023.

And as I look back on the year, it is with a heavy heart.

It has been a year overshadowed by crisis, conflict, divisive politics and the continuing threat of disease outbreaks and the climate crisis.

WHO started the year responding to a major earthquake in Türkiye and Syria, and we end the year responding to the horrific war in Gaza.

On Sunday, the Executive Board of WHO met for a special session on the health situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The outcome of that meeting was a resolution adopted by consensus that calls for immediate, sustained and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief in Gaza, including medical personnel.

The resolution is significant, because it is the first time since the conflict began on the 7^th of October that the international community has been able to agree on a common statement by consensus.

It demonstrates that in our increasingly divided and polarized world, it’s still possible for countries to come together and to find common ground.

And it shows that health remains one of the few areas in which countries from across the political spectrum can collaborate.

The resolution calls on me as Director-General to continue reporting on the public health implications of the crisis;

To assess the mental health impacts of the crisis;

To increase technical and material assistance;

And to strengthen our work with partners.

But as I said to the Board, these tasks are almost impossible in the current circumstances.

Nowhere and no one is safe in Gaza, including humanitarian and health workers.

More than 130 UN staff have been killed, including our own WHO colleague Dima Alhaj.

And humanitarian convoys to deliver aid or transfer patients have been attacked, detained, interrogated and delayed. It is completely unacceptable that health workers have also been detained.

The only real remedy is an immediate ceasefire.

I deeply regret that the UN Security Council has been unable to agree on a resolution calling for ceasefire, although the overwhelming majority of Member States voted in favour of it at the General Assembly on Tuesday of this week.

Without a ceasefire there is no peace, and without peace, there is no health.

While the crisis in Gaza is rightly in the headlines, it is unfortunately far from the only crisis in our world.

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In total, WHO has responded to 65 graded emergencies this year, under our three-tier grading system.

That includes 22 newly graded emergencies, and six new grade-three emergencies, requiring a fully coordinated response at global, regional and country level.

Many of these emergencies have now faded from the headlines or were never in them to begin with. But WHO has not forgotten them.

Sudan remains in crisis, after eight months of conflict complicated by massive food insecurity and a rapidly spreading cholera outbreak.

Sudan’s health system was already overstretched before the war.

Now it’s at breaking point.

Critical services have been discontinued in many areas.

People are dying from a lack of access to basic and essential healthcare and medication. As if the war is not enough.

Even today there has been increased fighting around Wad Madani, preventing UN staff from delivering aid.

In Ethiopia, although the war in Tigray officially ended more than a year ago, the humanitarian crisis has continued.

I am especially appalled by the continued use of rape and other forms of gender-based violence.

The International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia has compiled evidence that tens of thousands of rape survivors sought assistance between November 2020 and June of this year.

The number of women raped is much higher.

It was heart-breaking to read Refugee International’s findings, citing published numbers in the BMG, which – based on extensive research and interviews with health workers and civilians – estimated that approximately 40–50% of women in Tigray experienced gender-based violence. Sarah Miller is with us from Refugees International and can answer any questions on rape in Tigray.

Eighty percent of sexual violence survivors reported being raped, with close to 70% reporting that they were gang raped by armed groups.

Rape as a weapon of war, whether it is Tigray, the DRC, Haiti, Israel or Sudan, is a heinous act and stain on humanity.

But the systemic nature and unprecedented scale of rape and gender-based violence in Tigray is like nothing I have seen in my professional career and the lack of media coverage is deafening.

Gender based violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, is preventable. And all survivors must have access to compassionate health care services.

The neighbouring Amhara region of Ethiopia is also in a state of emergency due to continuing conflict, in which health facilities have been damaged or destroyed, including an ambulance that was attacked by a drone two weeks ago, killing five people.

In both Tigray and Amhara, and elsewhere in Ethiopia, a severe drought has compounded existing food insecurity and led to widespread malnutrition, with millions of people at risk of starvation.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in eastern DRC is worsening.

More than 150 000 people were displaced last weekend alone.

There are outbreaks of cholera, mpox and measles, as well as flooding and insecurity.

At least five WHO regions are impacted by worsening conflict and insecurity.

This year, there were over one thousand two hundred documented attacks on health workers, patients, hospitals, clinics, and ambulances, across 19 countries, resulting in nearly 700 deaths and over eleven hundred injuries.

Attacks on health are a violation of international humanitarian law.

Health must never be a target.

WHO’s mental health experts visited and supported the most vulnerable population in specialized facilities in Northwestern Syria following the earthquake in February.

They were also there in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Libya, among others, facilitating the scale-up of mental health and psychosocial support.

In Haiti, gang violence now affects over 80% of the capital Port au Prince, and is also expanding to neighbouring provinces.

A massive exodus of trained health care workers seeking to escape the violence – understandably – makes providing health services even more difficult.

Most of the country’s 22 major hospitals remain open but struggle to function, owing to problems in maintaining electricity and fuel for generators and lack of medical supplies.

This is hampering the response to the ongoing outbreak of cholera, which now affects almost the whole country, with more than 70 000 suspected and confirmed cases and more than 1000 reported deaths.

In Myanmar, the protracted conflict, recurrent natural disasters, and economic decline have deepened the political, humanitarian, human rights, and socio-economic crisis.

Escalation in conflict in several states and regions have now displaced an estimated 2.6 million people.

Health workers associated with the Civil Disobedience Movement continue to be targeted, as well as the private sector facilities that employ them, reducing access to health services for the population.

Humanitarian aid is politicized by all sides and aid workers are facing increasing barriers and security risks to their work.

And in Europe, the Russian Federation’s war in Ukraine is dragging into a third year.

There has also been increasing respiratory diseases globally in recent months, due to a number of viruses including influenza, rhinovirus, adenovirus, SARS-CoV-2 and bacteria including mycoplasma.

All of these crises come at a heavy price, in terms of lives lost and communities destroyed, but also in terms of the cost of delivering humanitarian aid.

Earlier this week, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released its Global Humanitarian Overview for 2024.

It appeals for US$ 46.4 billion to assist more than 180 million people in 72 countries facing life-threatening needs.

Forty-six billion dollars is a lot of money. But it’s a fraction of what the world spends on weapons and war.

The nations of the world can easily mobilize that kind of money if they want to. It’s just a question of what we value most.

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It’s sometimes hard to remember, but there has also been good news this year.

In May, I declared an end to both COVID-19 and mpox as global health emergencies.

Although the crisis stage has passed for both, they both continue to pose a significant threat to health.

In 2023, six countries eliminated one or more neglected tropical diseases. Also, noma, a devastating and disfiguring disease, was added to the list of neglected tropical diseases, paving the way for improved access to health care and more research and development support.

WHO recommended a second malaria vaccine, as well as new vaccines against dengue and meningitis.

Thirty more countries introduced the HPV vaccine, bringing us closer to our goal of eliminating cervical cancer.

And more people than ever – 71% of the world’s population – are now protected from the harm of tobacco by at least one WHO best-practice policy.

We have also seen significant advances in political, technical and financial commitment to health.

At the UN General Assembly in September, world leaders made commitments on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, universal health coverage and tuberculosis.

Together with a group of development banks we launched the Health Impact Investment Platform, with €1.5 billion to support countries to strengthen primary health care.

We launched the Global Initiative on Digital Health as part of India’s G20 Presidency.

And at COP28, more than 141 countries signed the UAE Declaration on Climate and Health and major pledges were made to combat climate-sensitive neglected tropical diseases.

So, although 2023 gave us plenty of reasons for despair, it also gave us reasons for hope.

And at a time like this, hope is the most powerful medicine.

Health professionals – from community health workers to Nobel Peace Prize winners – represent a powerful coalition that act as our frontline to the health threats we face.

And a new pandemic accord offers the world a generational opportunity to enhance our collective ability to tackle new disease outbreaks and prevent pandemics,

And we at WHO will continue to work with every country in the world, crowd-source expertise and provide the solutions to the health challenges presented to us.

On that, I wish everyone happy holidays and a happy new year.

Tarik, back to you.

Link: WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at ACANU press corps – 15 December 2023

Link to full video of press briefing: https://who.canto.global/b/U58PJ

Link to News edit of briefing: Duration: 05:26 Filmed WHO HQ 15DEC2023 and remote locations: https://who.canto.global/b/L9I13

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