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hello all i am fadela shaib speaking to you from who headquarters in geneva and welcoming you to our global kovid 19 press conference today friday 22nd january present in the room are w-2 director general dr tedros dr mike ryan executive director health emergencies dr maria von kirkhoff technical lead for kovig 19 dr sumiya swaminathan chief scientist dr bruce ellward special advisor to the director general and lead on act accelerator dr kate o'brien director immunization vaccines and biologicals joining us remotely is dr marie angela simao assistant director general access to medicines and health products welcome all we have simultaneous interpretation in the six u.n languages plus hindi and portuguese now without further delay i would like to hand over to dr tedros for his opening remarks and to introduce our guest over to you dr tedros thank you thank you fadila shukran good morning good afternoon and good evening yesterday the united states of america announced that it plans to retain its membership in wgo i want to thank my brother dr tony fauci once again for addressing the executive board so early in this morning so early in his morning i was also honored to speak with vice president kamala harris in the first hours of her full first full work day thank you again madam vice president the united states has long played a vital role in global health the u.s was a founding member of double joe and has been a leader in the fight against many diseases from smallpox to polio and malaria to hiv the u.s contributes an enormous amount to global health but it also benefits from who's work on a range of days both infectious and non-communicable american public health professionals who work at who and in other global health agencies gain valuable experience and lessons to use at home and a healthier safer world is a healthier safer america so we welcome president biden's commitment not just to remaining part of the who family but working constructively with wgo its member states and the multilateral system to end the pandemic and address the many health challenges we face globally in that sense we welcome the biden administration's commitment to protect women's and girls sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights around the world it comes at a critical juncture as the world prepares for the 25th anniversary of the landmark beijing declaration on women's rights that helped shape gender equality and women's movements globally we also welcome the united states commitment to rejoin the paris agreement on climate change which will have major benefits for the health of our planet and for human health we look forward working with the united states and all member states as we prepare for a successful cop 26 climate conference later this year and we welcome the united states commitment to support the access to covet 19 tools accelerator and to join kovacs vaccines are giving us all hope of ending the pandemic and getting the global economy on the road to recovery but we can only end the pandemic anywhere if we end it everywhere and to do that we need every member state every partner and every vaccine producer on board that's why today i'm glad to announce that kovacs has signed an agreement with fiverr biontech for up to 40 million dollars of its vaccine additionally pending whi emergency use listing we expect almost 150 million dollars of the astrazeneca oxford vaccine to be available for distribution by kovacs in the first quarter of this year together these announcements mean kovacs could begin delivering doses in february provided we can finalize a supply agreement for the fiverr biontech vaccine and emergency use listing for the astrazeneca oxford vaccine kovacs is on track to deliver 2 billion dollars by the end of this year this agreement also opens the door for countries who are willing to share those of the finder biotech vaccine to donate them to kovacs and support rapid rollout in my remarks to the wh executive board on monday i called on the international community to work together as one global family to ensure the vaccination of health workers and older people in is underway in all countries within the first hundred days of this year the commitment of the united states to join kovacs together with this new agreement with father biontech means that we're closer to fulfilling the promise of corpux today i'm pleased to be joined by albert borla the chairman and chief executive officer of fider albert and i have had several conversations as we have worked together to make this agreement happen albert thank you for your partnership you have the floor thank you very much dr tedders thank you very much tedros and uh let me start by thanking you seth and henrietta this is an exciting day for global health and we wouldn't have gotten to this point without the leadership and partnership of all three of you advisor we believe that every person deserves to be seen heard and cared for and of course we are committed to helping reduce health care disparities around the world and health care disparities around the world are true since the very beginning of our vaccine development program pfizer and biontech have been fairly committed to working toward equitable and affordable access of covet 19 vaccines for people around the world we fully support and we are in alignment with the guiding principles of the covax facility and we believe that gavis coordination of the kovacs advanced market commitment that supports the participation of 92 lower middle and low income economies is an important tool that will help to ensure that developing countries have the same access to vaccines as the rest of the world and we will provide the vaccine to cover for these countries at a not-for-profit base in this context i'm very pleased to serve that the pfizer and biontech have reached an advanced purchase agreement with the kovacs facility for up to 40 million initial doses of our covet 19 vaccine we expect the fair doses will be delivered in the first quarter of this year once we finalize agreements with unicef and pacho we are coordinating procurement to support the delivery of these vaccines on december 31st the last day of last year our covet 19 vaccine was the first to be granted a world health organization emergency use listing and today we are proud to have this opportunity to provide doses that will support kovacs efforts towards vaccinating healthcare workers at high risk of exposure in developing countries and other vulnerable of course populations this is just one step in our long-term commitment supporting developing countries as we work to deliver these first doses we are also bringing resources and expertise that will help to strengthen the global healthcare infrastructure building on our recent innovations in packaging to manage cold chain requirements and ensuring that solid systems are in place for vaccine delivery establishing the infrastructure needed to deliver breakthrough mrna vaccines in low income countries would not also would not only help the world fight this pandemic because as tetra said in this world we are as protected as our neighbor but also make us more prepared for the next pandemic we believe that this is a collective responsibility that calls for highly coordinated and collaborative actions by public and private stakeholder alike i want once more to thank the kovacs partners i want to thank gavi wh so sepi of course unicef paco and the bill and melinda gates foundation among many others involved for their leadership and commitment to equity in this fight to end the covenant depending we look forward to continuing to work with them to realize this important third vision it is because of the efforts of everyone here today and many more across the global health community that the pharmaceutical interest in other partners that we are one step closer to ending this global health crisis proving that science will win and will win for everyone everywhere i'm about to turn things over to you seth but i just couldn't avoid the temptation to say that i'm very glad that this press conference is happening at the day that the united states is rejoining the wh organization i think is a symbolic great day for us seth i would like to turn things over to you now so um thank you so much dr ted ross and thank you albert for your commitment to the kovacs facility and for what it stands for kovacs of course was launched last year because we wanted to avoid the mistakes that we had seen in the h1n1 pandemic when a small number of high-income countries brought up the global supplies of vaccine and poorer countries as well as other countries were left to fend for themselves so today just over six weeks since the beginning of the first non-clinical trial vaccine doses being used against the covet 19 pandemic we we faced the prospect of very soon being able to deliver as you heard from dr tedros nearly 150 million doses in the first quarter of the year via a global equitable access initiative this has been made possible by a collective effort by the international community that has helped kovacs raise over 6 billion u.s dollars and secure access to over two billion doses of course we can do more and we need to do more by our calculation with the right level of funding in place kovacs could procure 2.3 billion doses of vaccines in 2021 this would equate to close to 1.8 billion doses for the 92 lower income countries in the kovacs advanced market commitment or amc as we call it that's enough to protect about 27 percent of the population in those low and lower middle income countries which is in excess of the initial targets we laid out to protect those at highest risk and we have the prospect of more doses to come through um both other deals and the dose-sharing principles that we announced in december continuing with fundraising efforts and advancing further deals with manufacturers will remain a top priority for kovacs in 2021 this includes working with sepi our co-lead in kovacs to exercise first rights of refusals on other vaccines if proven successful that are in their r d portfolio as well as looking at second generation vaccines that may be important going forward of course we are also open to other vaccines that are not in the sepi portfolio if they bring characteristics that are important into the portfolio but back to the present question what everybody wants to know is when will we be able to start delivering doses as i mentioned we are close for the pfizer bioantectosis with the advanced purchase agreement signed we need to conclude some of the supply arrangements so we can start shipping doses the nearly 150 million doses of the astrazeneca oxford vaccines are ready to ship pending the who pre-qualification process which is critical to make sure that vaccines are safe and efficacious for countries i won't preempt anything here and my colleagues on the panel will certainly answer any questions you have on this to the best of their ability but the latest guidance is that this is likely to happen in february in the meantime we're working with countries to prepare for vaccine rollout in about one week's time we're looking to provide all 190 participating economies with an indicative allocation of how many doses we hope to be able to provide in the early part of this year somebody once said in the darkest hour of the night comes before the dawn as a scientist i know this is not true but i believe it's a useful proverb to describe the situation we're in today the virus is running out of control in many parts of the world health systems and economies are being stretched to a breaking point we cannot end this pandemic fast enough and people and governments are panicking we share this impatience we're working tirelessly to deliver doses to the people that need them the most when we do start delivering the volumes initially will be small for health workers and for the highest risk but they will grow quickly we are publishing our supply forecasts on our website so you can have as clear a view as possible on how we are progressing towards our goal of course these will be updated regularly given the challenges in vaccine approvals and and scale up and and ultimately delivery i thank you all for the ongoing interest in in the kovacs initiative and i look forward to answering any questions you may have i don't know if i'm going back to you dr tedros or if i'm if i'm supposed to be introducing henrietta so um is it is it henrietta next it's henrietta but i can introduce if you would like me to so thank you thank you seth as we have often said it's not vaccines on their own that will help to end the pandemic it's vaccination and thank you so much seth for your excellent intervention as you know unicef is playing a vital role in preparing countries for the delivery and rollout of vaccines and i'm pleased to welcome henrietta for the executive director of unicef henrietta thank you as always for your close partnership you have the floor thank you very much tedros and it is uh really a delight to be with you and with albert and with seth today on this panel so i think as we've just heard from seth and um each of you covet 19 has turned everyone's life upside down and children in particular will bear its consequences for years the pandemic has disrupted their education their health and their protection and it's affecting their mental health and pushing their families into poverty they need their lives back and covered vaccine is a key step towards that recovery with today's announcements we draw one step closer to the beginning of the vaccination efforts under the kovacs facility one step closer to extending the fight against covet 19 into more of the world's poorest countries and one step closer to achieving the goal of making sure that no country is cut off from the cobit vaccines but there's plenty of work yet to do unicef is currently assessing a series of bids in the covid19 vaccine tender that we launched in november we are negotiating long-term supply agreements with a number of manufacturers agreements that will pave the way for the world's poorest countries to have access to doses of quality assured vaccines as part of this effort i'm pleased to announce that unicef has awarded pfizer a contract following the tender and we are now in discussions to finalize the supply agreement thanks to unicef's negotiations and our decades of experience procuring and delivering vaccines in every corner of the world we have the expertise and know-how to do the job although today represents a milestone moment important challenges remain for the unprecedented logistical exercise of rolling out vaccines in every corner of the globe unicef and our partners are working with governments around the clock to ensure that countries are ready to receive the vaccines that there is appropriate cold chain equipment in place that health workers are trained to dispense them unicef is also playing a lead role in efforts to foster trust in vaccines by tracking and assessing and addressing misinformation ted rose to your point that we actually need people to get the vaccinations in the coming weeks unicef will begin transporting vaccines together with syringes and safety boxes to countries around the world and we are working with airlines and freight and logistics providers to ensure safe and timely delivery last year we saw a truly unique human ingenuity at work to successfully develop effective and safe vaccines in record time this year we turn to the biggest logistical challenge the world has ever seen and we need all hands on deck with that in mind may i join everyone to say how pleased i am that the united states is set to join the kovacs facility i'm confident that with its expertise and resources the united states will give this global effort and unicef's role in it a major boost the global unity commitment and support for the kovacs facility is truly a remarkable demonstration of what we can accomplish when we all governments ngos pharmaceutical com companies and members of the private sector as well as the un itself work together because we know that in the race to vaccinate the world there are no winners unless we all win every country together thank you very much tedros back to you thank you thank you so much henrietta and thank you once again to albert and seth it's important we all remember that vaccines will complement but not replace the proven public health measures that have been shown to suppress transmission and save lives we still have a lot of work to do but the light at the end of the tunnel continues to grow brighter i thank you and back to you fedila thank you all i will now open the floor to a journalist's question i remind you that you need to raise your hand in order to get in the queue and please don't forget to unmute yourself i would like to start with ap maria chang maria are you with us hi yes i am here um i have a question it's not about um the the kovac announcement i wondered if you could comment on whether or not who's advising the international olympic committee on whether or not the olympics in tokyo should be held or if you're providing any kind of risk assessment information to the japanese thanks dr ryan yeah hi maria happy new year the um yes with regard to tokyo 2020 and with regards to many mass gathering events around the world including world cups the olympics the hajj who has a specific mass gatherings group in the emergencies program and we provide with our regional colleagues ongoing technical operational and risk management advice to many many many mass gatherings around the world especially the international olympic committee and usually the host government of any particular olympics with regard to 2020 we provide risk assessment tools that the ioac and the government of japan have used to make their ongoing assessments around the olympics and we've been collaborating with the international olympic committee and several japanese institutions and participating in an all-partner task force on think there have been about 14 meetings thus far on the whole process we are an observer on the iosc independent expert panel and as such we don't contribute to the decision-making regarding the holding or not holding of the olympics but we provide technical input and advice we encourage and have encouraged this risk management approach to mass gathering events and i wish you guidance on that and updated that guidance as well with respect to the olympics in japan itself we have the host city but we also have the government and particularly the ministry of health labor and welfare because as olympics are not just held in a city very often it involves people coming and visiting a whole country multiple airports multiple sub-national entities involved clearly all parties and all stakeholders will have to come together and make the appropriate decision we got we all hope and we were speaking about it with dr teddrus before none of us would like anything more than to see the olympics move ahead as a symbol of our world coming together but again like everything we've had to face in the last year we've had to make decisions based on the evidence based on the science and based on the risks at that moment at the present time i believe the ioc and the government of japan are constantly reevaluating those risks and i would say to us all uh the best way we can get to an olympics is get on top of this disease uh that is the pathway to any mass gathering event in the future uh unless dg and henrietta and and and and and our colleagues have said there is hope so yes we are working very hard we will continue to offer that advice we remain available for all technical advice to the government of japan to our colleagues at the ioc and but we will not be part of the decision or arbitrating any decision related in relation to hosting the olympics or going ahead with them or not thank you um i would like to ask journalists if they prioritize their question to our guests because some of them will have to leave early i would like to ask ellen branswell to ask her question helen are you with us yes thank you very much for the love um i have a question that's uh two part one part for mr bola and another the other for perhaps sex i'm wondering how much vaccine the world can actually anticipate seeing produced this year i believe some of the early estimates were over enthusiastic it's harder to make vaccine than anybody would like and i would like to know how much pfizer at this point feels it can make and how much gabby thinks is going to be made over the course of the year please thank you helen mr burleigh you have the floor yeah thank you very much for your question i can only comment on pfizer's capabilities and on fire the manufacturing projections and last year we had announced that we believe we will be able to produce 1.3 billion doses of our covet vaccine in 2021 recently we announced that we have developed plans that makes us quite comfortable right now to say that we will be able to produce at least 2 billion doses this year obviously there are always the factors that they can play into a massive production and the logistical challenge but the two billions that i'm announcing what you have announced uh they are based on a very robust plan and i feel quite confident that you should be able to deliver thank you dr berkeley hi helen happy new year the answer of course is we don't know we can add up what different companies have announced as as albert has just done and the figures have gone up um but of course many of these companies have not yet had approval yet and we don't know the yields of their products so i think you know initially we were worried that many vaccines wouldn't work and so far we have now a number of vaccines that showed promise and of course that means that it's likely that other vaccines that are similar in the way they work will also be able to ultimately be brought forth so i think we're talking about numbers in the range of six to seven billion doses but as albert has said much can go wrong and um it is really a um you know it's difficult to predict that um in terms of of time and so i think we will have to watch over time uh where the world has is is able to go i think it is and henrietta said this remarkable how quickly in 303 days from the time um uh you know the the sequence was published to the first um you know uh approvals um now i think we're seeing the same type of scale up across the world and and um you know it's incredibly exciting to watch but um i suspect we'll have bumps in the road and those numbers may come down but but very substantial amounts thank you both i would like now to call on tomo de gucci from kyodo to ask the next question tomo you have the floor hi fabela can you hear me well very well go ahead please thank you tomohiro gucci with japanese news agency kyodo sorry question again on olympics japanese citizens are more and more concerned over holding olympic games under this pandemic and our poll showed 80 percent wants it to be postponed or cancelled but japanese prime ministers both former and incumbent have repeatedly insisted that they'll hold the olympic in july quote as a proof of victory over virus unquote does who see that we can achieve this kind of so-called victory or the drastic improvement of the situation in six months thank you thank you for the question uh yeah japan has beaten this disease before and i'm absolutely convinced that japan can do that again but it's as many countries have found around the world in the last couple of months that things are tough and difficult communities are fatigued and tired and sustaining these efforts while we bring vaccines online is a real challenge but i have every confidence in the japanese people and in their public health and and governmental authorities that that will happen um and and again japan led the way in understanding how this disease spreads in actually showing the techniques that could contain this this disease even in very very densely packed urban environments so japan has actually shown the way in the world in many cases on how to deal with this disease and i'm sure you will again and it is difficult to think about the olympics in the context when you have an emergency situation ongoing in tokyo and you have the prospect of the olympics and i can fully understand people's concerns and we can fully understand the desire of the government to move ahead with what is a very symbolic global event and one of great prestige i'm sure for the japanese people so there are many trade-offs here and i've said this before there are no easy answers science and policy are not the same thing data drives science science can advise government governments make policies policies are in the real world they must balance scientific realities against the social realities the economic realities and the political realities and the japanese government is in a difficult position but i am sure the japanese government will consult with its own society it will consult as it always does and it will come to the appropriate decision at the appropriate time we all hope in the olympics we all recognize that everyone right now is a little afraid as we enter the new year with some uncertainties so um stay the course and i believe the japanese government will like all governments i hope always act in the best interest and according to the will of its people thank you i would like now to invite care simons from nbc to ask the next question care are you with us oh yeah can you hear me very well go ahead please hi there uh a number of chinese scientists have said that they believe that the coronavirus originated outside of china surely it's too early to reach that conclusion and if you have agreed as your terms of reference for the investigation suggests that you will look at countries outside china have you also agreed with the chinese that your team will have access to the labs in wonha yeah thank you yeah i'm always very afraid in any process where the conclusions start looking for the evidence to support them we're dealing with a lot of that in the last few days around here the the the difficulty i think and i think we have to say this quite cleanly all hypotheses around the table and it is definitely too early to come to a conclusion of exactly where this virus started either within or without china there are different observations and i will call them observations scientific observations in different parts of the world virus been cultured off different surfaces virus and sewage potential serology in some places around potentially implicating earlier infection and all of that's very important because it builds up a picture this is a big jigsaw puzzle and you cannot tell what the image says by looking at one piece in the 10 000 piece jigsaw pull you can guess and you're entitled to your guess and you're entitled to your opinion but that doesn't make you right so i think we all have to again we keep saying this let's step back let's follow the evidence let's follow the science our team are on the ground they're having a good experience working with our chinese colleagues we're working through the data the data will lead us to the next phase where we need to go next to look at the origins of this virus so yes it is uh too early to come to to to to any conclusion but again uh we believe we are making some progress and we hope to continue to do so in the interests of uh public health in the future thank you i would like now to ask naomi from bloomberg news to ask the next question naomi can you hear me yes i can thanks very much um just wanted to ask uk prime minister boris johnson just said that the more contagious strain of virus that has been spreading there may be linked to higher mortality i wanted to get your view on that and ask how concerned you are in general about the variants that have been spreading um whether these may um have some resistance to vaccine to the vaccines that have been approved so far thanks so thank you for the question um i understand that that press conference in the uk is happening exactly at the same time as we're having the press conference here um so we're learning a little bit about that but we don't have that full information yet your question around the virus variants is something as you know we have been trucking for quite some time viruses change and we all know that but in recent weeks in recent months we've been hearing about these virus variants in a number of countries which have been identified through looking at their epidemiology and doing sequencing and identifying viruses that have a number of mutations all mutations are somewhat worrisome in the sense that we need to evaluate them properly most of these mutations and variants will have no impact on the virus itself but each of them deserves attention deserves a robust framework to analyze them and what we are looking for for each of them and there will be more is looking at transmissibility looking at the severity the disease presentation and the severity caused by those who are infected with those variants looking at the body's ability to develop neutralizing antibodies and any potential impact on available and future diagnostics therapeutics and vaccines as you know there are a number of variants that have been identified the one in the united kingdom the variant of concern 20 20 12 01. we have been working daily with our colleagues in our european regional office as well as across the united kingdom at public health england and many academic institutions looking at transmission looking at severity and from the information we have seen from them there are studies that are ongoing looking at hospitalization rates looking at mortality from the data we've seen and we do need to get the information that you just reported on they haven't seen an increase in severity but again we need to find out what you are referring to we should say that if you have increased transmissibility you will have more cases i know that might sound obvious but you'll have more cases you'll have more hospitalizations and you'll have more people an overburdened in healthcare system and in a situation where you have an overburdened healthcare system you can have increased deaths because the system is overwhelmed and doctors and nurses who are working incredibly hard to save as many lives as they can don't have as much time with patients they're overburdened and so we emphasize that no matter what virus is circulating virus variants or not we have to do everything we can to reduce transmission everything we can to reduce transmission we are encouraged by the signs of decreased transmission across the united kingdom also in denmark and ireland and also in south africa which has a different virus variant the 501y v2 that they identified recently and we see decreasing trends in incidents and this is a good sign and it tells us that the public health measures that are in place work against these viruses as you just heard mike say we have to stay the course the interventions that are in place that we've seen across so many countries reduce transmission they break chains of transmission everything from finding cases isolating cases good clinical care quarantining supported quarantine of contacts individual levels of mask wearing physical distancing hand hygiene avoiding crowds opening windows all of that needs to we need to stay the course we need to make sure that we adhere to all of those measures and especially in countries that are seeing decreases in transmission it's really important that the measures that are in place continue to be applied but as they are lifted they're lifted in a slow and a steady way they can't be lifted very very quickly or else you will see a resurgence again the virus likes people it needs people to circulate between so we need to put that into context so um with the variants there are a number that we are tracking through our virus evolution working group and through a much larger risk assessment framework where we are working globally to increase sequencing capacities leveraging existing systems like the gestures flu system that's in place but also making sure that the proper studies are done so that we can evaluate each of those and i will end mike can i just add on that specific issue because it's an important point just on how we count [Music] there is a big difference between the lethality of a virus how many people on average a virus kills versus the mortality of the virus for in terms of if i have if i have a 1 million people infected and my lethality is 1 and i have 2 million people infected with the lethality of one percent twice as many people will die and that's the issue with mortality in this case we're not seeing so far and again we wait to this is at this point that the disease is more lethal what we're seeing is if you infect more people more people will get very sick and if more people get very sick more people will die and we've shown that we've seen the graphs increasing incidence leads to higher mortality the number of dead scrolls but the absolute lethality of the virus does not need to grow for the number of deaths to roll we've seen that already over the last year if you're if your cases get out of control your debts will get out of control as your health system comes under pressure that's why we have to protect our health systems and keep the numbers low and i think any virus that transmits more readily will drive those kinds of problems now we will look as i say at the as maria says at the at any new uk data they chose because their signals that are very important to track but again i think it's again important that at the present time we all remain calm around the issues of these variants we need to monitor we need to measure we need to be very sure what they're doing or what they're not doing but we also need to focus on what we're trying to do to stop them and the good news is from what we can see the measures that are being put in place around the world are turning to the situation around in most countries however that remains to be seen without whether that will continue i don't know did you have a case there was also a question embedded within your question about what whether or not the variance any of the variants and any of the vaccines would be affected and i think it is important to address this from two at least two dimensions and probably three dimensions the first is that the this is really evolving information and there are a number of ways that evaluations can be done to understand whether or not any of the variants are whether any of the vaccines are less effective against the variants and i think it's important to say that it's too early at this point to really have clear information on that there are studies that are starting to come out on small numbers of samples and and variants and so this is really a a place that is um a place in motion but each of the variants is not necessarily going to have the same answer um with respect to each or every vaccine so i think we just really have to acknowledge that this is an important area and it's important for several reasons one is that we really need to understand this but the risk of variants relative to the vaccines is ever greater when the transmission is very high in communities not only because of variants that have already occurred but because of the possibility and the of additional variants emerging under the pressure of vaccines so that's it's just a second reason beyond what maria and mike have emphasized is we have these amazing tools at hand now and the urgency is to deploy them but we risk something about those tools if we are also not suppressing transmission to the maximum degree possible where those tools can be effective in settings where there is limited transmission so i think this is just a second point that we have to emphasize about the importance of really crushing transmission now and especially while we're rolling out these these new vaccines which are really the tool that we need to add to the tool box that we already have and take best advantage of them for their maximum impact thank you thank you i would like now to call on anna pinto a brazilian journalist from follow the sao paulo anna are you with us hi hi fedele thank you for the opportunity can you hear me yes very well go ahead please okay thanks uh my question is about the new variants also and about the use of ffb2 masks that were made mandatory in austria and part of germany on public transportation and in shops according to those governments regular mosques are not safe enough i'm not against the new coronavirus variants so i'd like to know uh if there is any evidence that the regular fabric masks are less efficient to prevent the new variants and if so if who will revise its guidelines for use of masks uh against uh kovid19 and and if there is any concern about a shortage of that kind of mask or the fact that it's probably too expensive for poorer people thank you very much thank you anna yeah thank you thank you very much for the question um this was one of the questions that we had directly to our colleagues in countries that are detecting these virus variants and are carrying out the studies that we were just describing and in particular the country the research that's underway in south africa and in the united kingdom are looking at increased transmissibility and why that may be but also looking at rates of infection among different populations and modes of transmission and from both of our colleagues in the united kingdom but also in south africa have no indication that the modes of transmission have changed that it spreads the same way some of these variants not all of them some of these variants may have increased transmissibility where one person may infect more than they would if it was the wild type virus but still not to an extent where things are drastically different and we are seeing that the interventions that are in place are working but i should say with the use of masks masks are one aspect of control one aspects of reducing the spread of of this virus and they can't be used alone and so we need to emphasize that because not one solution is enough not masks alone enough not physical distancing not hand hygiene you've heard us say that quite a lot our my our colleagues are having discussions right now with our european office and ecdc together with the two countries that you mentioned and also we have had conversations this evening with uscdc and ecdc as well looking at this and countries are free to make decisions as they see fit we will continue to look at the evidence that we've seen but the data that we have seen from the countries that have these virus variants there's no change in the modes of transmission and so we will we will look at our guidance and we will we are we have no intention of changing it right now but if anything changes we will modify and we will update accordingly but it is important to note that the measures that are in place in countries where the virus variants are circulating are working it takes a comprehensive approach it takes adherence to the measures that are in place to make sure that we follow through with the measures that are advised and so that we could reduce transmission but again not one measure alone is enough within our guidance itself it is also worth noting that the use of fabric masks we recommend a three layer mask and in our guidance materials itself we have recommendations on the specifications for filtration for example what the type of fabric should be for the inner layer the middle layer and the outer layer not all fabric masks are the same and so they need to be produced and made so that they provide the right type of protection and source control shortage is always a worry when partners have worked incredibly hard to increase capacity for medical masks for respirators for other personal protective equipment so that our front line workers have access to these life saving personal protective equipment there's still a global shortage despite all of these efforts that are made so it is important that we do make sure that our frontline workers are protected with the equipment that they need and so that is always a concern of ours the shortage issue has improved over time but it's still not completely fixed so i just wanted to add that to because i think that's an important aspect to the question that you ask thanks for the question thank you just reminding journalists that we have with us three guests willing to take any of your questions [Music] now i would like to move to india and to call on uh the reporter from observer times ashwin are you with us ashwin can you unmute yourself please no okay so yes yes yeah my question is uh can there be a many auto immune neurological and chronic health disorders that have a major impact quality of life at the vaccine full courts what reports who have on this okay ashby can you just repeat your question please the sound was not very good hello yes go ahead please uh can there be can there be many autoimmune neurological and chronic health disorders that have a major impact on the quality of life that the vaccine could cause what reports who have on this dr swaminathan yes thank you for that question i think there are two elements there the first one is on the vaccines who do we prioritize for these vaccines and it's really people who are at the highest risk of getting the infection and the highest risk of dying and we know who those people are we've seen it's the health care workers who are at the front line or exposed to get infected and it's also people who are older individuals who are at more risk of complications and death if they get the infection but it's also younger people with underlying diseases you mentioned chronic diseases we know that people with underlying heart disease hypertension renal disease dementia diabetes they are at higher risk again of having complications and of dying they need to be prioritized for the vaccine rollout and that's what countries are doing based on the who's advice through sage i think your question was also about will the vaccine cause some of these complications so the first thing we're saying is that vaccines should be given to people with underlying chronic diseases because they are at higher risk much higher risk of death we know that there may be unusual diseases you mentioned i think autoimmune diseases where there may be the need for an individual to consult their local physician so wherever there's a doubt it's always a good idea for the individual to consult with their local health care provider before taking the dose of a vaccine we're reviewing the data from trials as they're coming out and as you know these trials are many of them are still ongoing we've seen interim results from a few trials and a few more are likely to come out and based on that we evaluate the safety profile we evaluate the efficacy when we look at safety we the companies do present data on the different groups of patients they have and most companies are trying to include people with an abroad age group range you know from 18 up up to 80 plus they also try to include people with underlying chronic diseases and so we get some hints of the safety profile in all of these different subgroups but you know that the numbers are limited in clinical trials and so post deployment there will continue to be active monitoring pharmacovigilance safety monitoring across larger numbers of people and we're already we've crossed 55 million vaccinations i think globally and we are tracking safety and so far it's been it's been really very encouraging so this is something that the database will continue to evolve and if there are safety signals who and the regulatory agencies are tracking this and we will we will provide that information so it's again to conclude it's always a risk and a benefit evaluation when you take a vaccine because a vaccine is taken by a healthy individual to protect them from a disease in this case covid19 so it's in in the vast majority of people the benefits will outweigh the risks but there may be individual instances where you need to consult with healthcare provider i thank you dr swaminathan i would like now to call on david pilling from financial times david can you hear me i can thanks so much can you hear me okay yeah very well go ahead please thank you and the first i think seth said that the hope was to have enough vaccine to um vaccinate 27 of the populations i don't know if that's adult populations but anyway the populations of poor and middle-income countries my question is what an impact is that likely to have all else being equal on transmission and my second question and is to do with vaccines again and given that the astrozenica vaccine has been um approved by uk authorities why does the who need to separately approve that vaccine given you'd expect the uk to be pretty stringent and and just to follow up on that will you also be looking at the cyanopharm um cyanovac and the russian vaccine and what are the prospects for those to be used by kovacs which would potentially really increase the amount of vaccine that were available should of course it be safe and efficacious thank you david we have three questions first of all i would like to ask dr berkley to take the first question so um thank you david and happy new year to you um so first of all i said that that um that is correct that given our current projections which we have we have now posted that we hope to get in the amc countries to um uh 27 with all the caveats that have to occur over the course of a year that is what effect should that have on transmission well of course we don't know yet whether these vaccines are just disease mitigating vaccines or if they are also transmission blocking vaccines and so i think um you know that data is is beginning to trickle in and being looked at but there's not comprehensive studies on that um but the original reason that 20 was the number was because that would cover on average the health care workers plus the elderly plus the those with co-morbidities those at highest risk and therefore would protect those health systems in those countries at a time when we knew that there was going to be a a supply shortage and much more demand so that's where the original 20 came from it's what we thought could be produced and and how it might have an effect with this higher number obviously that's a good news assuming that those doses are there and of course we will have to see if those countries will need more doses or not um over time in terms of your question on on the um on on why this vaccine um is not um we can't just use the uk approval i'm sure mariangela will want to say something on that but a vaccine that is made in the uk is different than a vaccine that's made in in india it's different than a vaccine made in korea and so we have to make sure that those vaccines meet the standards and are comparable with the vaccines that that have had their um you know their their regulatory approvals lastly you asked about the chinese and russian vaccines and of course the answer is we will consider any vaccines for inclusion in kovacs assuming they add value to the portfolio assuming that there is transparent data on safety and efficacy and um that we can come up with a um a reasonable um uh price point and and supply allocation um that makes sense so let me stop there and i think marianja is going to come in my angela is going to come in yes let me compliment and thank you for the question david uh first on sino farm uh wgo is assessing several vaccines right now and uh the sino farm in cinovak are going to be inspected next week they they have both sent their photo cs to wgo for their emergencies listening so they are being assessed right now gamaliel we had a meeting today we have yet to receive the the more information especially on clinical data from from gamalia uh seth has responded already on the astrazeneca because you know that astrazeneca has eight different production sites right and for the the sites that we we provide will astrazeneca will be providing to through the kovacs facility we have the site in india which is the syrian institute of india which is already submitted the dossier to ww last week and it's under assessment and we have another site in in the republic of korea so we are working together with the korean authority to expedite the assessments of these two sites for the atrazenica uh vaccines there's the eight astrazeneca derived vacuums two of them are providing to to the facility i hope to answer those questions thank you dr simao i would like now to call on lauren sierra from atheist swiss news agency for the next question lauren can you hear me yes i can can you hear me yes very well go ahead please lauren yeah very good thank you for taking my question uh dr ted was this morning you met with the swiss health minister alabaster i assume you raise the question of that new repository uh biohub um what's new in that regard and and how and when shall we expect an operationalization of the repository thank you yeah thank you thank you so much as you have rightly said one of the issues we discussed with the minister is actually the biohub and the progress so far is the number of countries interested to join the biohave voluntarily is increasing and at the same time the preparation of the lab in switzerland is also going very very well so we hope to have the lab in in place as soon as possible and this will be very important because this is as part of the pandemic preparedness changes where we're making as you know on sharing pathogens member states have been negotiating for many years i remember when i was even minister of health this is many years ago but there was no breakthrough so the proposal from who was to start it as a volunteer program so the willing joins this volunteer program and from that i think more and more countries can join but we're really encouraged now by the cooperation and interest of many countries and i hope this biohub which is starting as a volunteer program will get a consensus globally so we have agreed doubleh and switzerland to continue to champion this pioneer this together with the three countries who have agreed that south africa italy and and thailand these are the front runners and we hope many others will will join there is a positive signal having said that on some of the details maybe mike you'd like to compliment but no i think you've you've covered it there extremely well maybe just the supplement and maria may wish to add this is really a measure to enhance the ongoing work that's going on between labs around the world we have the global influenza surveillance and response network the global polio net lab networks we've got a global network of labs on corona cyrus coronavirus 26 i think maria you can speak to that so countries are sharing material labs are sharing material for all kinds of different purposes and we're very lucky to have that now we need to accelerate that because of the need to add genetic sequencing and genetic characterization into that and the more we can find ways to create these hubs and you'll note that we call this a bio hub the idea is not to create a place where we just put stuff we've got to be able to move material around so it can be studied properly and from that perspective we want to get across that dynamic but we also have to within this work within the frameworks of the nagoya protocol and other important issues around the sharing of benefits and the sharing of of of of the the fruits of the research that come uh that an innovation that comes from having access to that material and who will maintain and and and will through the process of having a biohub will retain the responsibility for those materials and act as the steward of those materials we thank our colleagues in switzerland for acting as the repository and providing us with the means we will start small on this and we will we will work this through as we go this is a completely voluntary process we will involve our member states increasingly in in building the system um and it will not replace as i said existing systems too many times in health or public health or in public life we tend to dismantle and try and rebuild the world is more complex we have to evolve the systems we have use the systems we have enhance the systems we have and build new where we need to and evolve the system and maria you may wish just to speak about the wonderful labs we already have around the world that are probably out of time so maybe we can leave that to another day i think i'm being i'll just take the opportunity to thank them and so i don't need to add anything on the biohub that dr tedros and mike have just said but just to thank all of our our lab networks that are around the world you know our network our lab networks and our clinical networks our ipc networks our epi networks these are built over decades and they're built through collaboration they're built through trust they're built through mutual goals that we all have of achieving better health for all and so the sars kobe 2 lab network was built on the mers coronavirus network which was built on the first cyrus coronavirus network which is all built from our flu network and so we're leveraging systems we're building we're not starting from scratch and so it's a good opportunity to thank all of the 26 collaborating labs that provide reference services for countries that didn't have capacity in the beginning some of which don't have capacities for sequencing and so what we are doing as an organization and working through our regional offices is trying to build capacities for better diagnostics for sequencing for serology for the sharing of information and the the corresponding data that goes with those samples the clinical data the epidata all of this helps us better understand transmission it helps us better understand these viruses that that emerge and spread and how we can develop countermeasures against those the diagnostics the rapid diagnostics the therapeutics the vaccines so it's a massive thank you to all of our partners worldwide we don't thank you enough and we rely on the good work that you do your willingness to collaborate and share information so thank you thank you we have gone for over more than an hour since we started this press conference i would like to thank you for your participation and hand over to dr tedros for final comments dr tedros you have the floor thank you thank you so much to all those who have joined today and have a nice weekend and see you in our next pressure next week thank you so much yeah just if i could just say one thing because uh all of the staff here at double chin including dr ted ross tomorrow is the anniversary of the passing of work colleague pete salemme dr ted ross raised this and held a moment of remembrance for pete and all those we have lost in the front lines during the executive board this week tomorrow is the anniversary of his passing and today tonight is his wife and elise and his boys are are in our thoughts we still miss him and we will all mark the day of uh tomorrow when we last a fantastic humanitarian and global health leader thank you thank you uh mike just reminding journalists that we will be sending the audiophile and dr teder's speech just after this press conference the full transcript of this press conference will be posted on the w2 website if you have any follow-up question to who pfizer or gavi please do uh reach to reach out to to us and we will make sure you have the answers you need the press briefing is now closed have a nice weekend