Your Highnesses, Your Excellency,
Expensive colleagues and pals,
Esselamu'alaikum warahmetullahi wabarakatuh.
I thank Your Highnesses to your hospitality, to your continued help for the World Well being Group and international well being, and for the chance to deal with you right now.
It’s a nice pleasure to be again in Dubai. I used to be honored to be right here final December for COP28 – the primary COP to incorporate a day devoted to well being, and I thank the UAE for its management in giving well being such a distinguished place on the local weather agenda. It was the primary of its type. Thanks, UAE, for being a information.
147 international locations signed the COP28 United Arab Emirates Declaration on Local weather and Well being, recognizing that the local weather disaster is a well being disaster.
Specifically, I thank the UAE for its help of the WHO World Logistics Heart right here in Dubai, which has grow to be a necessary a part of WHO's operational response to well being emergencies world wide.
Final yr, the middle distributed medical provides to 50 million folks in emergency conditions in 81 international locations, in each area of the world – Afghanistan, Chad, Fiji, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Venezuela, Yemen and extra.
Since opening the middle in 2015 in Dubai, it has expanded 7-fold, from three,000 to 20,000 sq. meters.
Certainly, the middle is presently taking part in a significant function in our response to a number of emergencies world wide, together with the continued disaster in Gaza.
To this point, we have now despatched 447 metric tons of medical provides to Gaza, however it is a drop within the ocean of want, which continues to develop day by day.
Solely 15 out of 36 hospitals are nonetheless partially or minimally useful in Gaza.
Well being employees are doing their greatest in inconceivable circumstances.
I’m notably involved by the current assaults in Rafah, the place a lot of the inhabitants of Gaza has fled the destruction within the north.
WHO continues to name for secure entry for humanitarian personnel and provides;
We proceed to name for the discharge of the hostages held by Hamas;
And we proceed to name for a ceasefire.
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brilliance,
On the 12thth of February 2018 – precisely six years in the past – I stood on this stage and stated that the world was not ready for a pandemic and expressed my concern on the time pandemic might occur at any time.
As you bear in mind, lower than two years later, in December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and certainly, the world was not ready.
Right this moment I stand earlier than you, after COVID-19,
With tens of millions of individuals lifeless,
With the social, financial and political upheavals nonetheless echoing to today,
Though some progress has been made, corresponding to enhancements in surveillance, the Pandemic Fund, capability constructing in vaccine manufacturing, and the periodic evaluate we have now begun, the world remains to be not ready for a pandemic.
The cycle of panic and neglect has begun to repeat itself.
The painful classes we discovered are in peril of being forgotten as consideration turns to the various different crises going through our world.
But when we fail to be taught these classes, we pays dearly subsequent time.
And there will likely be one other time. Historical past teaches us that the following pandemic is a matter of when, not if.
It may very well be brought on by an influenza virus, or a brand new coronavirus, or it may very well be brought on by a brand new pathogen that we don't know but – what we name Illness X.
There's been loads of consideration recently on Illness X, however truly, it's not a brand new factor.
First we used the time period Illness
COVID-19 was a illness X – a brand new pathogen that causes a brand new illness.
However there will likely be one other illness X, or illness Y, or illness Z.
And as issues stand, the world stays unprepared for the following Illness X and the following pandemic.
If it hit tomorrow, we might face most of the identical issues we confronted with COVID-19.
It is for that reason that in December 2021, WHO Member States met in Geneva and agreed to develop a world settlement on pandemic preparedness and response – a legally binding pact to work collectively to maintain themselves and one another – the opposite secure.
International locations set themselves a deadline to finish the settlement in time for approval on the World Well being Meeting in Could this yr.
Now solely 15 weeks away.
Nevertheless, there are presently two most important obstacles to assembly this deadline.
The primary is a set of points on which international locations haven’t but reached consensus.
They’re making progress, however there are nonetheless areas of distinction that want additional negotiation between the international locations.
None of them are insurmountable. If international locations hear to one another's issues, I’m assured they’ll discover frequent floor and a standard strategy.
The second main barrier is the litany of lies and conspiracy theories surrounding the deal:
That it’s a energy seize by the World Well being Group;
That he’ll hand over sovereignty to the WHO;
That it’s going to give the WHO the ability to impose vaccine embargoes or mandates on international locations;
That it’s an “assault on freedom”;
That the WHO won’t enable folks to journey;
And that the WHO needs to regulate folks's lives.
These are among the lies which are being unfold.
In the event that they weren't so harmful, these lies can be humorous.
However they put the well being of the folks of the world in danger. And that is no laughing matter.
These claims are completely, utterly, categorically false. The pandemic settlement won’t give the WHO any energy over any nation or any particular person, for that matter.
Anybody who says they are going to be both uninformed or a liar.
However don't take my phrase for it. The draft settlement is accessible on the WHO web site for anybody who needs to learn it.
And anybody who does won’t discover a single sentence or a single phrase that offers the WHO any energy over sovereign states.
You understand, international locations are even speaking about sovereign AI, as we noticed within the earlier panel, in the identical manner. International locations will retain their sovereignty.
It is because it’s the sovereign states themselves who’re writing the settlement. Why would they comply with give up sovereignty to WHO?
We can’t enable this historic settlement, this historic second in international well being, to be sabotaged by those that unfold lies, intentionally or unknowingly.
Let me be clear: WHO didn’t impose something on anybody through the COVID-19 pandemic. No lockdowns, no masks mandates, no vaccine mandates.
We do not need the ability to do it, we don’t want it and we aren’t making an attempt to realize it.
Our job is to help governments with evidence-based steerage, recommendation and, the place obligatory, provides to assist them defend their folks.
However the choices are theirs. And so is the pandemic deal.
It’s written by international locations, for international locations and will likely be applied in international locations in accordance with their nationwide legal guidelines.
In truth, the WHO won’t even be a celebration to the settlement. Events are governments and solely governments.
Removed from ceding sovereignty, the settlement truly affirms nationwide sovereignty and nationwide accountability in its basic rules.
Certainly, the settlement is itself an train of sovereignty.
It's concerning the commitments international locations are making to maintain themselves and one another safer from pandemics.
And acknowledge that they’ll solely do that by working with one another.
Let me inform you what the deal says. It’s a set of commitments by international locations to strengthen the world's protection in a number of areas:
To strengthen prevention with a One Well being strategy;
Well being and care workforce;
Analysis and growth;
Entry to vaccines and different merchandise;
Change of data, know-how and organic samples;
And extra.
Now I ask you: what’s so problematic about these commitments?
Does anybody assume international locations mustn’t cooperate?
Does anybody assume that international locations mustn’t share data?
Does anybody assume that some individuals are extra deserving than others of entry to vaccines and different instruments?
In our interconnected and interdependent world, international locations can solely preserve themselves secure in the event that they work with one another.
On this sense, the pandemic settlement is a dedication to nationwide safety. It’s within the nationwide curiosity of each nation.
As a result of pathogens don't care concerning the traces folks draw on maps, or the colour of our politics, the dimensions of our economies, or the power of our army.
For all that makes us totally different, we’re one humanity, the identical species, sharing the identical DNA and the identical planet.
We now have no future, however a standard future.
Frequent threats, subsequently, require a standard response.
That’s the reason this pandemic settlement is so vital.
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Your Highnesses, Your Excellency,
The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated large losses to communities, international locations, companies and economies.
These losses shouldn’t be wasted and shouldn’t be repeated.
It’s attainable, and even possible, that we are going to face one other pandemic in our lifetime.
We can’t know the way gentle or heavy it could be. However we may be prepared.
Are we prepared now? Not but.
That is why the pandemic settlement is mission-critical for humanity.
It’s a pact with the longer term, that we are going to not expose the generations that comply with us to the identical sufferings that we endured.
If the deal had been in place earlier than COVID-19, we wouldn't have misplaced a lot.
Now’s the time for management from the best ranges of presidency to ship the pandemic settlement to the World Well being Meeting in 15 weeks.
Now’s the time to say no to inequality;
No to lies and misinformation;
And what about worldwide cooperation;
What concerning the internet capital;
And what about solidarity.
Because the era that lived by COVID-19, we have now a collective accountability to guard future generations from the struggling we endured.
Let historical past file that we rose to that accountability and made the world a more healthy, safer and fairer place.
Thanks a lot. I thanks.