Daily press briefing on coronavirus COVID-19, direct from WHO Headquarters, Geneva Switzerland with Dr Tedros WHO Director-General, Dr Micheal Ryan, Executive Director of the Health Emergencies Programme, and Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical lead, WHO Health Emergencies Programme with guest Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (3 April 2020).
World Health Programme (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today (3 Apr) announced that "more than 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now been reported to WHO, including more than 50,000 deaths."
Dr Tedros stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic “is much more than a health crisis” and has “profound social and economy consequences” as the restrictions many countries have put in place “are taking a heavy toll on the income of individuals and families and the economies of communities and nations.”
WHO’s Director-General noted that “several countries are suspending user fees and providing free testing and care for COVID-19 regardless of a person's insurance citizenship or residency status, we encourage these measures” and added this was “an unprecedented crisis, which demands and unprecedented response.”
The Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Micheal Ryan, said, “we need a massive investment in our capacity to do surveillance, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine. We need very good information systems. We need a highly educated, engaged, and empowered communities around the world who understand what to do if they're sick, where to go, have access to a doctor, to a nurse, to testing, to isolation, to quarantine” while also strengthening healthcare systems “to deal with those who are very sick.”
Dr Ryan said, “we can certainly see circumstances in which the use of masks, but homemade or cloth mask at community level may help in an overall comprehensive response to this disease,” but above all, he added, “we must ensure that our frontline health workers are the ones who are most exposed. They're the ones that need the, the, the high-performance protection in order for them to stay healthy, do their jobs and save lives.”
The technical lead of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, said better understanding is necessary “of why are some people progressing from moderate disease, to severe disease, to critical disease? Why are some people progressing backwards, from various very severe disease, to more moderate disease, and recover?”
Dr Tedros said that in order “to reduce the risk of increasing transmission of COVID-19, the polio oversight board has made the hard decision to suspend house to house vaccination campaigns, knowing that this may lead to an increase in polio cases.”
He also said that “sadly, there are reports from some countries have an increase in domestic violence since the COVID-19 outbreak began” and called on countries “to include services for addressing domestic violence as an essential service that must continue during the COVID-19 response.”
According to the WHO there are now globally 972,303 confirmed infections and 50 322 confirmed deaths from COVID-19
