MON, AUG 10 2020-theG&BJournal– The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said there are green shoots of hope in the fight against the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, ‘’and no matter where a country, a region, a city or a town is – it’s never too late to turn the outbreak around.’’
Ghebreyesus said leaders must step up to take action and citizens need to embrace new measures, (The two essential elements to addressing the pandemic effectively) as the coronavirus reached 20 million registered cases and 750,000 deaths this week.
The WHO DG praised Rwanda and a number of European countries, countries in the Mekong Region, New Zealand, and many island states across the Caribbean and the Pacific that were able to suppress the virus early, in his media briefing on COVID-19 today.
‘’Rwanda’s progress is due to a similar combination of strong leadership, universal health coverage, well-supported health workers and clear public health communications,’’ Ghebreyesus said in his praise for the country where all testing and treatment for COVID-19 is free, as he noted, ‘’so there are no financial barriers to people getting tested.’’
‘’And when people test positive for the virus, they’re isolated and health workers then visit every potential contact and test them also. Getting the basics right provides a clear picture of where the virus is and the necessary targeted actions to suppress transmission and save lives. This means that where there are cases, the government can quickly implement targeted measures and focus control efforts where they are needed most.’’
He called New Zealand ‘’a global exemplar’, ‘’and over the weekend Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern celebrated 100 days with no community transmission, while stressing the need to remain cautious.
Other countries like France, Germany, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Italy, and the UK had major outbreaks of the virus but when they took action, they were able to suppress it.
Many countries globally are now using all the tools at their disposal to tackle any new spikes.
The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also received praise from the WHO boss saying the Mr Johnson put areas of northern England under stay at home notifications, as clusters of cases were identified.
‘’In France, President Macron introduced compulsory masking in busy outdoor spaces of Paris in response to an increase in cases. Strong and precise measures like these, in combination with utilising every tool at our disposal are key to preventing any resurgence in disease and allowing societies to be reopened safely.’’
And even in countries where transmission is intense, it can be brought under control by applying an all of government, all of society response.
He noted that chains of transmission have been broken by combination of rapid case identification, comprehensive contact tracing, adequate clinical care for patients, physical distancing, mask wearing, regular cleaning of hands and coughing away from others.
‘’Whether countries or regions have successfully eliminated the virus, suppressed transmission to a low level, or are still in the midst of a major outbreak; now is the time to do it all, invest in the basics of public health and we can save both lives and livelihoods. In the countries that have done this successfully, they are using a risk based approach to reopen segments of societies, including schools.
And as they do so, they must remain vigilant for potential clusters of the virus.
He also addresses the issue of school reopening: ‘’We all want to see schools safely reopened but we also need to ensure that students, staff and faculty are safe. The foundation for this is adequate control of transmission at the community.’’
”My message is crystal clear: suppress, suppress, suppress the virus. If we suppress the virus effectively, we can safely open up societies.”
The WHO Director General provided an update on the accelerator supported vaccines which he says are in Phase 2/3 trials.
He said a Global Vaccines Facility is engaging over 160 countries. ’’The first therapy for severe COVID – dexamethasone – is in scale-up. Dozens of other promising therapies are under analysis. Over 50 diagnostics are in evaluation, including potentially game-changing rapid antigen tests. And a comprehensive framework for allocating these scarce tools for greatest global impact, is under consultation.
The coming 3 months present a crucial window of opportunity to scale-up the work of the ACT-Accelerator for global impact.
However, to exploit this window we have to fundamentally scale up the way we are financing the ACT-Accelerator and prioritize the use of new tools.
There is a vast global gap between our ambition for the ACT-Accelerator and the amount of funds that have been committed.’’
For the vaccines alone, over $100 billion dollars will be needed.
‘’This sounds like lot of money and it is. But it’s small in comparison to the 10 trillion dollars that have already been invested by G20 countries in fiscal stimulus to deal with the consequences of the pandemic so far.’’
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