Welcome to the Health Organization press briefing on covid19. We have with us as always the w. H. O. Director general ted, mike ryan, executive director and doctor maria, they take the lead for covid19. Doctor will begin with an update, then when he has finished his opening remarks, i will open the meeting to questions. If youre connected by zoom, please use the raise hand icon to get into the queue to ask her questions, if you connect by phone please hit 9 to indicate you want to ask for questions. I will apologize right now to all those who miss out. We have more than 260 people on the line already connecting and asking questions. So we have to restrict this briefing to announce with our speakers who are meeting the response and can get back to the other demands of their time. I will now hand over to doctor. Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are. The pandemic continues to take a massive toll, not just on health but on so many parts of life. Yesterday the government of japan and the committee took a difficult but wise decision to postpone the lumpy games. I think Prime Minister and the members for making the sacrifice to protect the health of athletes and officials. We look forward to next year olympics which we hope will be an even bigger and better celebration of our shared humanity. And we look forward to join. We have overcome many pinned mx and crisis before. We will overcome this one too. The question is, how large of a prize will be paid. Already we have lost more than 16000 lives. We will lose more. How many more will be determined by the decisions that we make in the actions that we take now. To show the spread of covid19, many countries are introduced and presented majors. At significant social and economy costs. Closing businesses, canceling sporting events and asking people to stay home and to stay safe. We understand that this country are now trying to announce when and how we will be able to ease the measures. The uncertainty depends on what countries do, was this proclamation wide majors in place . Asking people to stay at home and shutting down population in using the pressure on Health Systems but on their own these measures will not extend. The point of the actions is to enable the more precise and try to get to the measures that are needed to stop transmission and save lives. To use this time to attack the virus, you have created a second for opportunity, the question is, how will you heal it. There are six key actions that really come in first, train and deploy your publichealth force. Second, implement a system to find every suspected case a Community Level. Third, run Production Capacity and availability of testing, fourth identify, adapt the Key Facilities you will use to treat and isolate patients. Fifth, have a clear plan and process to quarantine contacts and finally, number six refocus the whole government on suppressing and controlling teamcovid19. These are the best way to stop and when the restrictions are lifted, the virus does not research. The last thing any country needs is to open schools and businesses only to be forced to close them again because of the resurgence. Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test and treat are not only the best and fastest way out of social economy restrictions, they are also the best way to prevent them. More than 150 countries still have fewer than 100 cases. By taking the same aggressive actions now, these countries have the chance to prevent Community Transmission and avoid some of the more serious social and economy cost and other countries. This is especially relevant for many of the countries who Health Systems may collapse under the weight of the numbers of patients we have seen in some countries with Community Transmission. Today, i joined the United Nation secretarygeneral and secretarygeneral and executive director to launch the global appeal. To stop all the most fragile countries who have already suffered years of acute humanitarian crisis. This is much more than Health Crisis and we are committed to working as one from the brightest in consequences. We also welcome the generals call for grievances, were all facing a Common Thread in the only way to defend it is by coming together as one humanity. We are grateful for the more than 200,000 individuals and organizations who have been contributing to the covid19 response fund. It seems we launched less than two weeks ago and the fund has raised more than 95 million u. S. Dollars. I would like to offer my big thanks to gsk for its generous contribution of 10 million u. S. Dollars today. Although were especially concerned about countries, all countries have populations including older people. Older people carrying the collective wisdom of our societies, they are valued and valuable members of our families and communities but they are at higher risk of the more serious complications of covid19. We are listening to older people and those who work with and for them, to identify how best we can support them. We need to Work Together to protect older people from the virus and to reassure their needs are being meant for food, fuel, Prescription Medication and human interaction. Physical distance does not mean social distance. We all need to check in regularly on older parents, neighbors, friends or relatives who live alone or in homes in whatever way as possible so they know how much they are loved and valued. All of the things are important at any time but there more important during a crisis. Finally the covid19 pandemic has highlighted the need for compelling communication about Public Health. Last year, w. H. O. Announced the first festival, the volume quality and diversity surpassed her expectation. We received more than 1300 entries from 110 countries. And today we are announcing a short list of 45 excellent vital health topics. Were also announcing a distinguished panel of jurors who will judge the short list with the winners to be announced in may. We will show all the shortlisted films in the coming weeks on our website and social media channels. In this difficult time, film in either media at a powerful way, not only of communicating Important Health messages but also ministering one of the most powerful medicines, i thank you thank you doctor. We will now open the floor to questions, as i mentioned before a little housekeeping if you connect by zoom, use the razor hand icon to get in the queue. If youve connected via phone, hit 9. Please restrict your questions to one question, please try to keep them as short as possible because there are so many people who need to ask questions. In fact we had so many questions left over from monday i will now read a question from simon because he has been waiting three times to ask his question, i cannot see him in the queue so ill read it out, simon i hope you can hear this question. This is from simon, from today news africa, simon asks the coronavirus pandemic is fast spreading across africa and threatening to overwhelm our week healthcare system, the center for Global Development in washington, d. C. Is warning if developed countries do not support africa today, this pandemic will not be defeated. What type of concrete assistant can w. H. O. A drive to assist africa now before its too late. I can begin. W. H. O. Has Country Offices in every country in africa and our teams there have been supporting countries for many years. In addition to that are regional director has searched many staff on the office to support the countries and allow better support to be provided, we support the process of planning to dispatch lab test, we worked with the technicians all over africa and were currently working to increase the all the capacity and surveillance and clinical management. We will continue to work with them. In the international community, i think and for all countries of the south in low and middle Income Countries need support in the north, must with dealing with a massive crisis, it must move to protect the south because nobody is safe until were all safe. Thank you some much. The number of cases in africa is around 1600 as we speak, if you take the number of cases, this is an opportunity to use the recommendations i just made. Many to be able to cut it from the back, they contest, they can isolate and steal the number of cases is low. They should believe this thing is in their hands, they can do something to stop it as early as possible. But then of course we have a Global Responsibility and humanity and especially those countries like the g20, will have the g20 summit tomorrow, they should be able to support countries all over the world, not only from africa but all over the world with lowincome and middle Income Countries because its only through solidarity that we can support those countries. From w. H. O. Side, we have started as early as possible to stop the countries by providing test kits and we have provided test kids to more than 120 countries and a good number are from the african continent and also ppe 268 countries and most of the countries are from africa and w. H. O. Will continue to support the countries who need our support. In many stakeholders to build up our capacity to support countries as we have been doing. Thank you doctor. The next question from brazil. Somebody else who has been waiting to ask a question for a week, please go ahead. My question is on the president , i apologize on insisting on this but his remarks last night and over the last days, are they actually putting the lives of brazilians at risk, would you ask him to change his position intake responsibly . Thank you so much sir. I think we have spoken on this issue and issues like this before. We trust that our governments will take the appropriate action to Public Health risks which are real but we also understand the terms that the countries face in protecting economies and social systems, we must focus first on trying to stop the disease and saving lives. It is maybe just repeating what i said but to all countries in many countries already taking communitywide actions, closing schools, restricting and asking them to stay at home and all possibilities to have physical distancing. That is very important but at the same time we have our proposed six actions and that will also apply to any country and thats what we said. But our countries, 150 country with less than 100 cases and they have to be very serious at this stage when they have less number of cases and the first thing they should do, they should expand and train and deploy their healthcare workers as karen Public Health worth interim workforce. They should implement a system wide approach to find suspected cases are Community Levels and this is for all countries, even countries with no cases, we have sung countries that have not had any cases. And we even suggest countries who ramp up production and capacity and availability to do more testing and the recommendation we met, identify, adopt, we have to prepare enter prepare our facilities. In some countries, the numbers of cases have jumped in overwhelm the system and they were not prepared. It was very difficult to give service to patients who are coming to the hospital to get service. So preparing the system is very important for any country including the countries who dont have cases or less than ten cases or countries who have reported less than 100 cases or more than 100 cases or 1000 cases. In confirmed cases should also be isolated and this is the same recommendation for every country. In the other very important recommendation, we need to have all of government approach. Because this pandemic cannot be trusted with the Health Sector alone. We need to have all relevant sectors working together to suppress and control this pandemic. And not only the whole government approach, were also seen we need the trust of the community and community should be mobilized to do their share because this is everybodys business and every citizen has a responsibility to take apart. So the recommendations which we believe apply to all countries. This virus is very dangerous. And we have already counted more than 16000 deaths. If you remember we have been saying for more than two months, this virus is public enemy number one. Its a dangerous virus, we have been saying that the window of opportunity is narrowing in the time to act was a month or two months ago, thats what you have been saying. But we still believe there is opportunity, i think we squandered the first window of opportunity, but were saying in my message, i made it clear this is a Second Opportunity which we should not squander. And do everything to suppress and control the virus. And this is a responsibility for all of us, especially the political relationship is key, has to be able to mobilize communities also to take ownership and do the right things to suppress and control this pandemic. Thank you very much doctor. Now will move to italy, from public tv. Are you there . Can you hears . Please go ahead. Bad feedback. Can you please say your question again if not i will redo not because i do have some text on your question is sounds like we w. H. O. Thinks about testing an active surveillance in italy at this stage, what should they do in terms of testing and active surveillance . I think we actually spoke with the italian colleagues today and the Senior Member of our staff was currently embedded in a high level of advice. The regional director is also in contact with the ministry of health, italy is breaking down his problem. You see what the situation is said each administrative level and then you decide which tactics are better. Transmission is very intense and its very difficult to get a handle on testing all cases and doing Contact Tracing. We attempt to save live at this point in the lockdown measures are there but there are times in which transmission is not that intense and where theres a real possibility of avoiding the worst that is happened in many parts of northern italy. So i believe our colleagues are trying to scale up the trained workforce trained Public Health workers, get out into Community Detection to detect suspect cases to isolate suspect cases and to trace contacts. We fully understand in certain areas right in the center, epicenters it is difficult to do that when you are dealing with a heavy wave and dealing with the Health System with huge pressures that we really do admire our colleagues and they are heroes. They are putting up a courageous fight against this virus on behalf of their own people and on behalf of the world. Bleed like and support they are breaking the problem down. They are working their way through the problem and we will do everything in our power and the world Health Organization to support them in their efforts. Thanks. I could to supplement beyond italy i think there many countries that are looking at the situation in the transmission situation that they are in and the situation can seem completely overwhelming anw important it is as part of this comprehensive package is a fundamental aspect that needs to be enhanced and we hear you. We are on the phone with our colleagues every day who say to us this seems impossible. This is not something we can do. What should we do . We have been very clear that its critical that you test to find where this virus is so you know where you are fighting it to find all of your suspect cases and test the suspect cases find those contacts and find those contacts who develop symptoms and by doing that you are able to break down the transmission. When the situation is such that you have communitywide transmission and their some areas with very large outbreaks there ways which you may need to prioritize those actions they can break down the problem. Find those boundaries of where that big outbreak is so you can bring it more in the control and in making those tough decisions temporarily we are helping being able to find although suspect cases. As the director general has said the these socalled lockdown measures that many countries have implemented and more and more we are hearing about countries implementing those socalled lockdown measures this is buying you a little bit of time. That time needs to be used appropriately and that time must be used to build up again your workforces to be able to find those cases, to be able to break down a much larger problem into something that becomes more manageable. We have guidance that we have on our web site which works through with you and with all countries which transmission scenario you may be in an outline some of the considerations that you may need to take if you are in clusters or Community Transmission with the overall aim of bringing it back to Community Level transmission to clustering such cases an individual chains of transmission so that transmission can be suppressed and you can bring the outbreak under control. We hear you. We understand that this is overwhelming in many cases but there are things you can do to suppress the transmission and save lives. Just two lines. You know the commitment of the Italian Government is really, really incredible and not only that the corporation from the citizens of the country from italy is also amazing. I think this will bring results and as mike said we will do everything to support and there are some good efforts now. We had a discussion with some of the senior experts from italy today and we hope putting it in progress will continue it. I am really happy to see that italy is doing all it can. Thank you. The next question is from kathryn. Kathryn can you hear me . Yes. Yes, please go ahead. Good afternoon. My question as people and most of the country are saying conventional equipment is not available as the w. H. O. Advised them to use