Almost 25% of deaths worldwide could be prevented if the actions in the compendium were fully implemented
WHO, UNDP, UNEP and UNICEF have partnered to create a new compendium of 500 actions aimed at reducing death and diseases driven by environmental risk factors, the first such resource to unite this expertise from across the UN system.
Environmental pollution and other environmental risks cause 24 per cent of deaths through, for example, heart disease, stroke, poisonings, traffic accidents, and others. This toll could be substantially reduced - even eliminated - through bold preventive action at national, regional, local and sector-specific levels.
The Compendium of WHO and other UN guidance on health & environment provides easy access to practical actions for practitioners to scale up efforts to create healthy environments that prevent disease. It is designed for policymakers, staff in government ministries, local government, in-country UN personnel and other decision makers.
The repository presents actions and recommendations to address a comprehensive range of environmental risk factors to health, such as air pollution, unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene, climate and ecosystem change, chemicals, radiation and occupational risks, among others.
Air pollution alone leads to 7 million deaths each year, while climate change is expected to contribute increasingly to a broad range of health impacts, both directly and indirectly through effects on biodiversity.
“Events like record-breaking high temperatures in North America, massive flooding in Europe and China, and devastating wildfire seasons provide increasingly frequent, grim reminders that countries need to step up action to eliminate the health impacts of environmental risk factors,” said Dr Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, at WHO. “Implementing the actions in the compendium should be part of a healthy and green recovery from the COVID pandemic and beyond, and is essential to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals. The UN is uniting its health and environment expertise to support countries in this endeavour.”
The compendium, which is accessible via interactive webpages on the WHO website and as a PDF for offline reference, also addresses priority settings for action, such as cities and urban settlements, as well as cross-cutting topics like children’s environmental health.
“Young children are especially vulnerable to environmental risks, which can affect their survival and lifelong health and well-being,” said Aboubacar Kampo, Director of Health Programmes at UNICEF. “Healthy environments are a prerequisite for healthy children. Our assessment indicates that it can prevent a range of life-threatening diseases and quite significantly, up to a quarter of deaths among children under five years of age. Furthermore, healthy environments work as preventative health care and help reduce unnecessary medical costs for families, enabling them to invest in socio-economic progress."
Two thirds of deaths attributed to environmental risk factors are from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart disease, stroke and cancer, making the actions in the compendium a crucial part of addressing the NCD epidemic.
The compendium can also play an important role in achieving health equity, as low- and middle-income countries bear the greatest environmental burden in all types of diseases and injuries.
“The Compendium can be used to engage in country dialogue on development priorities in line with the 2030 Agenda, and to direct resources accordingly for resilient, healthy, inclusive and sustainable development,” said Dr Mandeep Dhaliwal, Director of the HIV, Health and Development Group at UNDP. “By addressing the factors that cause a large burden of the disease in low- and middle-income countries, the Compendium offers policymakers, the private sector and other stakeholders valuable tools for creating the transformative change needed to secure a healthy future for people and planet.”
“Channelling investments into the actions that address the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, which have profound implications for health, is key. We must transform the way we value nature if we are to safeguard health and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals — a major shift that requires multi-sector, multi-agency efforts. This compendium, by making available key tools and methodologies developed by a broad range of development partners is an important step in this direction and in promoting positive environment and health outcomes,” said Monika MacDevette, Chief, Chemicals and Health Branch, UNEP.
The compendium is a “living” repository, subject to updates and new guidance as they become available from partner organizations. Each action is briefly described and refers to the source for greater detail.
It calls for a scaling up of actions in countries by ministries of health and others at national, regional, local levels, with each of the outlined interventions classified according to principally involved sectors, level of implementation and necessary instruments, such as regulation, taxes and subsidies, infrastructure, education, communication, and others.
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
Only a quarter of countries worldwide have a national policy, strategy or plan for supporting people with dementia and their families, according to the WHO’s ‘Global status report on the public health response to dementia’, released today. Half of these countries are in WHO’s European Region, with the remainder split between the other Regions. Yet even in Europe, many plans are expiring or have already expired, indicating a need for renewed commitment from governments.
At the same time, the number of people living with dementia is growing according to the report: WHO estimates that more than 55 million people (8.1 % of women and 5.4% of men over 65 years) are living with dementia. This number is estimated to rise to 78 million by 2030 and to 139 million by 2050.
Dementia is caused by a variety of diseases and injuries that affect the brain, such as Alzheimer’s disease or stroke. It affects memory and other cognitive functions, as well as the ability to perform everyday tasks. The disability associated with dementia is a key driver of costs related to the condition. In 2019, the global cost of dementia was estimated to be US$ 1.3 trillion. The cost is projected to increase to US$ 1.7 trillion by 2030, or US$ 2.8 trillion if corrected for increases in care costs.
“Dementia robs millions of people of their memories, independence and dignity, but it also robs the rest of us of the people we know and love,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization. “The world is failing people with dementia, and that hurts all of us. Four years ago, governments agreed a clear set of targets to improve dementia care. But targets alone are not enough. We need concerted action to ensure that all people with dementia are able to live with the support and dignity they deserve.”
More support needed, particularly in low- and middle-income countries
The report highlights the urgent need to strengthen support at national level, both in terms of care for people with dementia, and in support for the people who provide that care, in both formal and informal settings.
Care required for people with dementia includes primary health care, specialist care, community-based services, rehabilitation, long-term care, and palliative care. While most countries (89%) reporting to WHO’s Global Dementia Observatory say they provide some community-based services for dementia, provision is higher in high-income countries than in low- and middle-income countries. Medication for dementia, hygiene products, assistive technologies and household adjustments are also more accessible in high-income countries, with a greater level of reimbursement, than in lower-income countries.
The type and level of services provided by the health and social care sectors also determines the level of informal care, which is primarily provided by family members. Informal care accounts for about half the global cost of dementia, while social care costs make up over a third. In low- and middle-income countries, most dementia care costs are attributable to informal care (65%). In richer countries informal and social care costs each amount to approximately 40%.
In 2019, carers spent on average five hours a day providing support for daily living to the person they were caring for with dementia; 70% of that care was provided by women. Given the financial, social and psychological stress faced by carers, access to information, training and services, as well as social and financial support, is particularly important. Currently, 75% of countries report that they offer some level of support for carers, although again, these are primarily high-income countries.
New initiative to better coordinate dementia research
A series of unsuccessful clinical trials for treatments for dementia, combined with the high costs of research and development, led to declining interest in new efforts. There has, however, been a recent increase in dementia research funding, mainly in high-income countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The latter increased its annual investment in Alzheimer’s disease research from US$ 631 million in 2015 to an estimated US$ 2.8 billion in 2020.
"To have a better chance of success, dementia research efforts need to have a clear direction and be better coordinated,” said Dr Tarun Dua, Head of the Brain Health Unit at WHO. “This is why WHO is developing the Dementia Research Blueprint, a global coordination mechanism to provide structure to research efforts and stimulate new initiatives.” An important focus of future research efforts should be the inclusion of people with dementia and their carers and families. Currently two-thirds of countries reporting to the Global Dementia Observatory involve people with dementia “rarely” or not at all.
Good progress in awareness-raising campaigns
More positively, countries in all regions have made good progress in implementing public awareness campaigns to improve public understanding of dementia, with strong leadership by civil society. Two-thirds of countries reporting to the Observatory have run awareness-raising campaigns. And two-thirds have taken action to improve the accessibility of physical and social environments for people with dementia and to provide training and education to population groups outside the health and social care sector, such as volunteers, police, fire services and first responders.
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
New hub’s mission is to provide the world with better data, analytics and decisions to detect and respond to health emergencies
Berlin, 1 September 2021 -- To better prepare and protect the world from global disease threats, H.E. German Federal Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization Director-General, will today inaugurate the new WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, based in Berlin.
“The world needs to be able to detect new events with pandemic potential and to monitor disease control measures on a real-time basis to create effective pandemic and epidemic risk management,” said Dr Tedros. “This Hub will be key to that effort, leveraging innovations in data science for public health surveillance and response, and creating systems whereby we can share and expand expertise in this area globally.”
The WHO Hub, which is receiving an initial investment of US$ 100 million from the Federal Republic of Germany, will harness broad and diverse partnerships across many professional disciplines, and the latest technology, to link the data, tools and communities of practice so that actionable data and intelligence are shared for the common good.
The WHO Hub is part of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme and will be a new collaboration of countries and partners worldwide, driving innovations to increase availability of key data; develop state of the art analytic tools and predictive models for risk analysis; and link communities of practice around the world. Critically, the WHO Hub will support the work of public health experts and policy-makers in all countries with the tools needed to forecast, detect and assess epidemic and pandemic risks so they can take rapid decisions to prevent and respond to future public health emergencies.
“Despite decades of investment, COVID-19 has revealed the great gaps that exist in the world’s ability to forecast, detect, assess and respond to outbreaks that threaten people worldwide,” said Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergency Programme. “The WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence is designed to develop the data access, analytic tools and communities of practice to fill these very gaps, promote collaboration and sharing, and protect the world from such crises in the future.”
The Hub will work to:
Enhance methods for access to multiple data sources
vital to generating signals and insights on disease emergence, evolution and impact;
Develop state of the art tools to process, analyze and model data for detection, assessment and response;
Provide WHO, our Member States, and partners with these tools to underpin better, faster decisions on how to address outbreak signals and events; and
Connect and catalyze institutions and networks developing disease outbreak solutions for the present and future.
Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, currently Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, has been appointed to lead the WHO Hub. WHO would like to acknowledge the Nigerian government for its support, which ensures strong leadership for this important initiative.
The WHO Hub is currently operating from a centre provided by the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. It will soon move to a permanent campus at the heart of Berlin in Kreuzberg that will provide a collaborative work environment for the Hub’s staff, who will represent a wide range of disciplines.
“All the work that goes into pandemic and epidemic preparedness must occur before an outbreak starts,” said Dr Tedros. “Data linkage and analysis, and the ability to better detect and assess risks of disease events in their earliest stages before they amplify and cause death and societal disruption, is what the WHO Hub will focus on. WHO is grateful that partners like Germany and Chancellor Merkel are joining the world on this necessary path."
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
KABUL/CAIRO/KATHMANDU,22 August 2021: “As humanitarian needs in Afghanistan increase, the abilities to respond to those needs are rapidly declining. WHO and UNICEF call for immediate and unimpeded access to deliver medicines and other lifesaving supplies to millions of people in need of aid, including 300 000 people displaced in the last two months alone.
“While the main focus over the past days has been major air operations for the evacuation of internationals and vulnerable Afghans, the massive humanitarian needs facing the majority of the population should not - and cannot – be neglected. Even prior to the events of the past weeks, Afghanistan represented the world’s third largest humanitarian operation, with over 18 million people requiring assistance.
“WHO and UNICEF are committed to stay and deliver for the people of Afghanistan.
“However, with no commercial aircraft currently permitted to land in Kabul, we have no way to get supplies into the country and to those in need. Other humanitarian agencies are similarly constrained.
“WHO and UNICEF call for the immediate establishment of a humanitarian airbridge for the sustained and unimpeded delivery of aid into Afghanistan. We are also closely following up with all UN and international partners to explore options for expediting aid shipments.
“In the first few days of the recent hostilities, both WHO and UNICEF — like all other UN agencies — prioritized the safety and security of our staff. But our work continued even when the hostilities were at their worst. We remain committed to staying in Afghanistan and delivering, and we rapidly shifted gears to address the needs of millions of Afghans who remain in the country.
“Conflict, displacement, drought and the COVID-19 pandemic are all contributing to a complex and desperate situation in Afghanistan. Humanitarian agencies need to be supported and facilitated to meet the enormous and growing needs in Afghanistan, and make sure that no one dies unnecessarily due to lack of access to aid.
In the past week, WHO distributed lifesaving supplies to partners and hospitals from its stocks in-country. But supplies are rapidly dwindling, and WHO currently only has enough to meet urgent needs for up to one and a half weeks. Most planes flying into the country to evacuate personnel have been arriving empty, missing crucial opportunities to bring in urgently needed health supplies and other humanitarian aid. More than 500 metric tones of WHO supplies, scheduled to be transported over three flights to Afghanistan this week and next week, remain in WHO’s logistics hub in Dubai’s International Humanitarian City. These include trauma medicines, essential medicines and medical supplies, pneumonia medicines, supplies for the management of severe acute malnutrition, and supplies for the management of chronic diseases. WHO operates through 8 offices in Afghanistan and works with local implementing partners to provide urgently needed health care for all. As the Health Cluster lead WHO also ensures that partners continue delivering a coordinated response in all corners of the country.
UNICEF has 13 offices in Afghanistan and a range of partners that support us in delivering lifesaving supplies to the most disadvantaged.
To support the about 10 million children, and their families, affected by the humanitarian crisis, UNICEF is currently delivering life-saving services such as ready to use therapeutic food to nourish starving children and mobile health clinics to give urgent medical care. UNICEF is also delivering water to those most affected by the drought, including in camps for internally displaced people. Despite the ongoing humanitarian crisis, UNICEF is distributing hygiene kits and continuing vaccination for babies and young children. UNICEF is also expanding its humanitarian response in the country by prepositioning supplies. In the past week, in several of the new camps for internally displaced people in Kabul, UNICEF established child-friendly spaces, nutrition hubs, and vaccination sites.
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
If you had COVID-19, do you still need the vaccine? How long should you wait after recovery to get vaccinated? What do we know about natural immunity vs vaccine-induced immunity?
WHO’s Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan explains in Science in 5 this week.
YouTube Science in 5 episode
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
Abidjan/Brazzaville, 17 August 2021 – Cote d’Ivoire has launched Ebola vaccination of high-risk populations, including health workers and first responders in Abidjan, where an Ebola outbreak was declared on 14 August.
The country was able to swiftly begin the vaccination on 16 August with the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine manufactured by Merck as the vaccine doses that the World Health Organization (WHO) helped secure to fight a four-month long outbreak in Guinea were sent quickly by Guinea to Cote d’Ivoire.
The vaccine deployment from Guinea included 2000 doses from Merck that are being used under the “ring strategy” where people who have come into contact with a confirmed Ebola patient are given the vaccine, as well as first responders and health workers. In addition, Guinea sent around 3000 vaccine doses manufactured by Johnson & Johnson which are to be used to boost the vaccination in areas not experiencing active transmission.
Guinea has also deployed five vaccination experts and provided monoclonal antibody treatments to Cote d’Ivoire, which declared an outbreak after confirming the Ebola virus in a patient who travelled to Abidjan by road from Guinea. The patient is currently receiving treatment at a hospital in Abidjan. Effective early treatment, which currently exists, and supportive care can significantly improve chances of surviving Ebola.
“The Ebola vaccine is a critical tool in the fight against the virus and so it’s a top priority to move rapidly and start protecting people at high risk of the disease,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “The speed with which Cote d’Ivoire has ramped up vaccination is remarkable and shows that with effective sub-regional solidarity we can quickly take measures to extinguish lethal infections that can potentially flare up into large outbreaks.”
In addition to the confirmed case, one suspected case and nine contacts have been identified and are being monitored. No deaths have been reported. There is no indication yet that the current outbreak in Cote d’Ivoire is linked with the one that was in Guinea. Further analysis and genomic sequencing will help determine any connection.
To support Cote d’Ivoire’s efforts to control the outbreak, the first since 1994, WHO is deploying experts to join their country-based counterparts to help ramp up infection prevention and control, diagnostics, contact tracing, treatment, community mobilization and cross-border surveillance. The Organization is also assessing whether additional vaccines will be needed to curb the disease.
In Guinea, the health authorities are stepping up surveillance, carrying out further investigations, identifying contacts in readiness for vaccination and readying an Ebola treatment centre.
Since the Ebola outbreak was declared in Guinea earlier this year, WHO has been supporting six countries, including Cote d’Ivoire, to prepare for a potential outbreak. This included support in disease surveillance, screenings at border crossing points and in high-risk communities as well as setting up rapid response teams, improving testing and treatment capacity and reinforcing community outreach and collaboration.
The outbreak in Cote d’Ivoire is the third this year after the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea.
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
Delta variant on path to become dominant strain worldwide as surge in the highly transmissible variant increases urgency for vaccinating large numbers of vulnerable people
Rising infection rates resulting in increased hospitalizations are overwhelming health systems and leaving many countries in urgent need of life-saving oxygen
Testing rates in much of the world is too low, especially low- and lower-middle-income countries [1] – leaving much of the world blind to how the disease is evolving and vulnerable to new variants
Funding the Rapid ACT-Accelerator Delta Response (RADAR) urgent appeal for US $7.7 billion would enable: significantly increased testing and better surveillance to detect and protect against new variants; more oxygen to treat the seriously ill and save lives; vital personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect health workers; the rolling out of emergency response and delivery support for the effective delivery and deployment of COVID-19 tools, including in humanitarian contexts; and continued research and development (R&D) so that tools remain effective
The US$ 7.7 billion is not an additional funding need but is part of the ACT-Accelerator’s overall 2021 budget, which is needed urgently within the next four months
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With more COVID-19 cases reported in the first five months of 2021 than in the whole of 2020, the world is still in the acute phase of the pandemic – despite high vaccination rates in some countries protecting populations from severe disease and death. Inadequate testing and low vaccination rates are exacerbating disease transmission and overwhelming local health systems, while leaving the whole world vulnerable to new variants.
Many countries are experiencing new waves of infections – and while many high-income countries and some upper-middle-income countries have implemented widespread vaccinations, put more robust testing systems in place, and made treatments increasingly available – many low- and lower-middle-income countries are struggling to access these vital tools due to a lack of funds and supplies. Investing in the ACT-Accelerator to make tools available to everyone, everywhere, will benefit all countries through a more globally inclusive and coordinated response.
While four variants of concern currently dominate the epidemiology, there are fears that new, and possibly more dangerous, variants of concern may emerge.
With hard-won gains of the last three months at risk, the ACT-Accelerator has mounted a US$ 7.7 billion appeal, the Rapid ACT-Accelerator Delta Response (RADAR), to urgently:
Scale up testing: US$2.4 billion to put all low- and lower-middle-income countries on track towards a ten-fold increase in COVID-19 testing and ensure all countries get up to satisfactory testing levels. This will significantly enhance local and global understanding of the changing disease epidemiology and emerging variants of concern, inform the appropriate application of public health and social measures and break chains of transmission.
Maintain R&D efforts to stay ahead of the virus: US$ 1 billion for ongoing R&D, enable further market shaping and manufacturing, technical assistance and demand generation to ensure that tests, treatments and vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant and other emerging variants, and that they are accessible and affordable where they are needed. Address acute oxygen needs to save lives: US$ 1.2 billion to rapidly address acute oxygen needs to treat the seriously ill and control the exponential death surges caused by the Delta variant.
Rollout of tools: US$ 1.4 billion to help countries identify and address key bottlenecks for the effective deployment and use of all COVID-19 tools. As supply of COVID-19 vaccines ramps up in the coming months, flexible funding will be essential to help fill on-the-ground delivery gaps.
Protect frontline healthcare workers: US$ 1.7 billion to provide two million essential healthcare workers with enough basic PPE to keep them safe while they care for the sick, prevent the collapse of health systems where the health workforce is already understaffed and overstretched, and prevent further spread of COVID-19.
In addition to the US$ 7.7 billion appeal, there is an opportunity to reserve the supply of vaccines through exercising options in the fourth quarter of 2021 for 760 million doses of vaccine to be available in mid-2022 beyond the fully subsidised doses that COVAX will deliver up to the end of Q1 2022. Commitments to reserve these vaccine options in the last quarter of the year for delivery in the middle of 2022 can be made to Gavi/COVAX, as part of the ACT-A network of agencies.
Reserve vaccines: Reserve supply of 760 million doses of vaccine by exercising options in the final quarter this year to ensure there is continued supply available to make deliveries into 2022. Reserving doses requires contingent capital; on delivery these 760m doses will cost an additional US$ 3.8 billion.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said: “US$7.7 billion is needed urgently to fund the ACT-Accelerator’s work to address the Delta surge and put the world on track to ending the pandemic. This investment is a tiny portion of the amount governments are spending to deal with COVID-19 and makes ethical, economic and epidemiological sense. If these funds aren’t made available now to stop the transmission of Delta in the most vulnerable countries, we will undoubtedly all pay the consequences later in the year.”
Carl Bildt, WHO Special Envoy to the ACT-Accelerator, commented: “Ending the pandemic will generate trillions of dollars in economic return due to increased global economic output and reduced need for government stimulus plans to deal with the health and financial crisis that COVID-19 causes. The window for action is now.”
The ACT-Accelerator recently published its Q2 2021 Update Report, which provides an overview of the progress made in bringing life-saving COVID-19 tools to countries around the world, and highlights the efforts made to ensure health systems are able to receive and fully optimize the use of COVID-19 countermeasures, during the April-to-June 2021 period. It shows how investments made to the ACT-Accelerator have driven results and impact in the fight against COVID-19.
Increased global discourse and new initiatives echo the imperative to achieve equity in the fight against the pandemic. In just over 15 months, by 9 August, 2021 donors had stepped up and provided US$ 17.8 billion of the ACT-Accelerator’s US$ 38.1 billion funding needs[2]. This unprecedented generosity has driven the fastest and most coordinated effort in history to develop tools to protect global health security, and to deliver impact where it is most needed.
Achievements across ACT-Accelerator pillars include:
Diagnostics pillar, co-convened by FIND and the Global Fund, working closely with UNITAID, UNICEF, WHO and over 30 global health partners to scale up equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostic technologies:
More than 84 million molecular and antigen rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have been procured via the Diagnostics Consortium
Regionalized manufacturing has been given a boost through technology transfers
Over 70 countries supported to expand laboratory infrastructure and ramp up testing.
Therapeutics pillar, co-convened by Wellcome, Unitaid, supported by WHO, UNICEF and the Global Fund has:
Procured US$ 37 million worth of treatments including 3 million doses of dexamethasone, and US$ 316 million worth of oxygen supplies.
Supported identification of the first life-saving therapy for COVID-19 – dexamethasone – and provided global guidance on its use.
A COVID-19 Oxygen Emergency Taskforce was activated to assess and address COVID-19 surges in demand to cut preventable deaths. The pillar also brokered an agreement for the world’s largest medical oxygen suppliers – Air Liquide and Linde – to collaborate with ACT-Accelerator partners on increased access to oxygen in low- and lower-middle-income countries. Global demand for medical oxygen is currently more than a dozen times greater than before the pandemic.
From the start of the pandemic to July 1st, 2021, over US$ 97 million of oxygen provisions (2.7 million items) have been shipped to countries.
Additionally, in the last quarter, US$ 219 million has been awarded to countries for the procurement of oxygen provisions, including oxygen concentrators and new public oxygen plants, through the Global Fund COVID-19 Response Mechanism.
COVAX, the Vaccines pillar, is co-convened by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO) – working in partnership with UNICEF as key implementing partner, and with vaccine manufacturers, civil society organizations, and the World Bank has:
Accelerated the research and development of a portfolio of 11 vaccine candidates across four technology platforms.
Shipped a total of 186.2 million vaccines to 138 countries and economies (as of 5 August 2021). Of these, 137.5 million doses were shipped to 84 AMC countries and economies. It is expected that a total of 1.9 billion doses will be available for shipment by the end of 2021. Of these, AMC participants are expected to receive about 1.5 billion doses, including donated doses, equivalent to approximately 23% population coverage (excluding India).
Established a Manufacturing Task Force to identify and resolve manufacturing issues impeding equitable access to vaccines through COVAX. The Taskforce is urgently addressing short-term challenges and bottlenecks and working with a consortium in South Africa to transfer technology and establish a vaccine manufacturing hub in the region, ensuring long-term regional health security.
Health Systems Connector, co-convened by the Global Fund, WHO and the World Bank has:
By end April, procured PPE worth more than US$ 500 million, assessed country readiness for deployment of COVID-19 vaccines in more than 140 countries (jointly by World Bank, GFF, Gavi, the Global Fund, UNICEF and WHO), and documented disruptions to 90% of health systems and services through national pulse surveys of more than 100 countries.
Captured country-specific insights on bottlenecks and ongoing health systems-related challenges and has developed global guidelines and training across multiple critical health system areas.
Helped reduce PPE prices, reaching 90% reduction peaks on medical masks and N95/FFP2 respirators. Both the Global Fund, through the COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM), and the Global Financing Facility, through the COVID-19 Essential Health Services, awarded grants to countries to buy PPE, distribute drugs and train community health workers in vaccine rollout to reinforce the COVID-19 national response.
PPE stock pre-positioned by UNICEF across warehouses in Copenhagen, Dubai, Panama and Shanghai is immediately available for delivery to countries in need, subject to availability of funding.
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
Abidjan/Brazzaville – The Ministry of Health of Cote d’Ivoire today confirmed the country’s first case of Ebola since 1994. This came after the Institut Pasteur in Cote d’Ivoire confirmed the Ebola Virus Disease in samples collected from a patient, who was hospitalized in the commercial capital of Abidjan, after arriving from Guinea.
Initial investigations found that the patient had travelled to Cote d’Ivoire by road and arrived in Abidjan on 12 August. The patient was admitted to a hospital after experiencing a fever and is currently receiving treatment.
Guinea experienced a four-month long Ebola outbreak, which was declared over on the 19 June 2021. There is no indication that the current case in Cote d’Ivoire is linked to the earlier outbreak in Guinea. Further investigation and genomic sequencing will identify the strain and determine if there is a connection between the two outbreaks.
This year Ebola outbreaks have been declared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea, but it is the first time an outbreak has occurred in a large capital city such as Abidjan since the 2014–2016 West Ebola outbreak.
“It is of immense concern that this outbreak has been declared in Abidjan, a metropolis of more than 4 million people,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa. “However, much of the world’s expertise in tackling Ebola is here on the continent and Cote d’Ivoire can tap into this experience and bring the response to full speed. The country is one of the six that WHO has supported recently to beef up their Ebola readiness and this quick diagnosis shows preparedness is paying off.”
WHO is helping to coordinate cross-border Ebola response activities and 5000 Ebola vaccines doses which the organization helped secure to fight the outbreak in Guinea are now being transferred to Cote d’Ivoire, following an agreement between the ministries of health of Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea. An aircraft is departing Abidjan soon to collect the vaccines which will be used to vaccinate people at high risk, including health workers, first responders and contacts of confirmed cases.
WHO staff based in Cote d’Ivoire are supporting the investigation into the case. In addition, a multidisciplinary team of WHO experts covering all key response areas will be deployed rapidly to the field. They will help with ramping up infection prevention and control of health facilities, diagnostics, contact tracing, treatment and reaching out to communities to ensure they take a key role in the response.
Cote d’Ivoire declared the outbreak in line with International Health Regulations and WHO does not advise any travel restrictions to and from the country.
While countries are focused on the COVID-19 response, they should strengthen their preparedness for potential Ebola cases.
While Cote d’Ivoire borders Guinea and Liberia which were struck hard by the 2014–2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, the country has had no confirmed cases reported since 1994, when an outbreak among chimpanzees infected a scientist.
Ebola is a severe, often fatal illness affecting humans and other primates. Case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks. There is now effective treatment available and if patients receive treatment early, as well as supportive care, their chances of survival improve significantly.
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh: Demonstrating equity and inclusiveness, which are critical to curtail the ongoing pandemic, Bangladesh has launched COVID-19 vaccination for Rohingya refugees, housed in one of the world’s largest and most densely populated camps in Cox’s Bazar.
Sixty-four year old Mohammad Shofi was among those to get the COVID-19 vaccine on day one of the campaign that rolled out on 10 August to vaccinate nearly 48 000 refugees in the age group of 55 years and above.
“I feel really good,” said Johura Khartun, another of the first few beneficiaries of the vaccination drive.
Lauding the initiative, Regional Director Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, said, “I commend Bangladesh leadership for this initiative and their ongoing efforts to scale up vaccination across the country.
“Bangladesh is demonstrating what WHO has been advocating for – equitable access to vaccines. Inclusion is key to protecting vulnerable populations like the refugees, for safeguarding their health and that of their host communities and societies,” the Regional Director said.
Vaccination of Rohingya refugees is part of the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan to ensure equity and fair allocation of vaccines across the country.
“We believe this campaign will play a key role in containment of SARS-COV-2 transmission and reduce mortality and morbidity among this vulnerable population", said Dr. Md. Mahbubur Rahman, Civil Surgeon, Cox’s Bazar.
In the Rohingya refugee camps, the COVID-19 campaign is led by government with technical support of WHO among other partners.
WHO has led the partnership support for preparation of operational plan, training of medical officers, vaccinators and other heath workforce.
WHO has repurposed its field staff working in other programmes like TB, in addition to deploying medical officers specializing in vaccine preventable diseases and its entire Cox’s Bazar health emergencies team for prioritizing support to smooth roll out of COVID-19 vaccination in Cox’s Bazar camps.
"Vaccination of this highly vulnerable population is important to contain the spread of COVID-19 virus and prevent prolonging the pandemic. No one is safe until everyone is safe," said Dr Bardan Jung Rana, WHO Representative to Bangladesh.
WHO, in partnership with UNICEF and UNHCR, has trained community health workers in the refugee camps.
“Time and again the Government and the people Bangladesh has demonstrated global leadership, generosity and humanity towards the Rohingya. The UN in Bangladesh is ever so grateful for this initiative and the partnerships that have made this possible,” said Mia Seppo, UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh.
Engaging communities and getting their support is critical for update of COVID-19 vaccines as well as adherence to public health and social measures. Thousands of refugee and host community volunteers are working tirelessly promoting and mobilizing communities for health and hygiene measures and connecting them with critical health services.
The COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective in preventing severe disease, hospitalization, and death. However, vaccines alone cannot stop the pandemic. Hence, those vaccinated will need to continue to wear face mask appropriately, practice hand hygiene, and other COVID-19 appropriate behavior.
Prioritizing vulnerable communities, WHO has been and will continue to work with health sector partners for providing quality essential services to the refugees as well as their host communities in Cox’s Bazar.
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.
A group of researchers started this project with the aims of understanding what are the core outcomes for patients living with Long COVID.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently called countries to prioritise recognition, rehabilitation and research for the consequences of COVID-19, and the collection of standardised data on Long Covid and proposed the term “Post COVID-19 condition” should be used for people living with Long COVID.
A significant portion of people diagnosed with COVID-19 subsequently experience lasting symptoms including fatigue, breathlessness and neurological complications months after the acute infection. However, the evidence for this condition is limited and based on small patient cohorts with short-term follow-up.
There is an urgent need for the development of a core outcome set (COS) to optimise and standardise clinical data collection and reporting across studies (especially clinical trials) and clinical practice for this condition. With this in mind, clinical research communities and people living with Post COVID-19 condition have come together to respond to this emerging global healthcare crisis.
An international group of experts in COS development and Post COVID-19 Condition research and clinical practice have developed a programme of research together with WHO (World Health Organisation), ISARIC (International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium), and patient partners to develop a Post COVID-19 Condition COS.
This project, Post-COVID Condition Core Outcomes, will start by surveying people living with Post-COVID-19 condition, assess what outcomes matter and build a plan in two phases. The first phase will focus on what outcomes should be measured and the second phase will focus on how to measure these outcomes.
Researchers aim to complete the first phase (what outcomes to measure) in the summer of 2021 and the second phase (how to measure these outcomes) in 2022.
This project follows the COMET (Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials) Initiative’s standards and has been registered on COMET’s COS registry.
This plan is being globally publicised in its early stages so that research and patient communities are aware, thereby potentially avoiding any unnecessary duplication of work, and to let researchers planning studies, especially clinical trials, and clinicians know the anticipated time frame of these recommendations.
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ISARIC is a global federation of clinical research networks, providing a proficient, coordinated, and agile research response to outbreak-prone infectious diseases. ISARIC’s mission is to generate and disseminate clinical research evidence for outbreak-prone infectious diseases, whenever and wherever they occur.
This research was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the UK Department for International Development, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.