World Health Organization

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released a statement, saying that "speeding up vaccination roll-out is crucial as new cases in the WHO European Region are increasing in every age group, apart from one."

Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, stated that vaccines are highly effective in preventing infections, but the "roll-out of these vaccines is unacceptably slow". Kluge is recommending "the same public health and social measures as we have in the past to compensate for delayed schedules" and added, "we must speed up the process by ramping up manufacturing, reducing barriers to administering vaccines, and using every single vial we have in stock, now."

“Only 5 weeks ago, the weekly number of new cases in Europe had dipped to under 1 million, but now the Region’s situation is more worrying than we have seen in several months. There are risks associated with the increased mobility and gatherings over the religious holidays. Many countries are introducing new measures that are necessary and everyone should follow as much as they can,” said Dr Dorit Nitzan, Regional Emergency Director for the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

A report by the World Health Organisation has found that nearly 1 in 3 women experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime globally, resulting in "around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner."

“Violence against women is endemic in every country and culture, causing harm to millions of women and their families, and has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “But unlike COVID-19, violence against women cannot be stopped with a vaccine. We can only fight it with deep-rooted and sustained efforts – by governments, communities and individuals – to change harmful attitudes, improve access to opportunities and services for women and girls, and foster healthy and mutually respectful relationships.”

Ghana received delivery of 600,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 jabs acquired through the Covax initiative. The initiative is an immunisation-sharing scheme designed to help developing countries in the vaccination effort.

The United Nations-backed initiative delivered Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines produced by the Serum Institute of India.

The World Health Organization director Dr Tedros Adhanom previously said that bilateral deals between rich nationals and vaccine manufacturers have made it more difficult for Covax to acquire jabs, leading Rwanda's President Paul Kagame to condemn "hypocrisy and double standards" in global distribution efforts.

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has released a statement urging Tanzania to "scale public health measures against COVID-19 and to prepare for vaccination" and to share "data in light of reports of COVID-19 cases among travellers." Tanzania had last shared its Covid-19 data in May 2020.

"This situation remains very concerning. I renew my call for Tanzania to start reporting COVID-19 cases and share data. I also call on Tanzania to implement the public health measures that we know work in breaking the chains of transmission and to prepare for vaccination," the statement read.

The World Health Organization has granted approval for Oxford/AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine. The vaccine is easier to store and cheaper than its competitors and will be distributed mainly to low- and middle-income countries.

After visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology, World Health Organization experts have closed the lid on a controversial theory that coronavirus came from a lab leak or was made by scientists.

Peter Ben Embarek, WHO lead investigator, said the next step would be to "look at the possible pathways of introduction of the virus into the human population," and for any evidence that it might have made that jump into humans earlier than currently known.

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response has criticised China and the World Health Organization for not having acted fast enough to avert catastrophe during the early stages of the Covid-19 outbreak. The Switzerland-based panel added that there was "potential for early signs to have been acted on more rapidly" in China at the start of the crisis.

"What is clear to the panel is that public health measures could have been applied more forcefully by local and national health authorities in China in January (2020)," the report said.

Soumya Swaminathan, World Health Organization (WHO) chief scientist, said Monday that despite the growing availability of vaccines herd immunity to the Covid-19 would not be achieved in 2021. . Until then, preventive measures such as masks will be necessary.

Swaminathan commended the "incredible progress" made by researchers to develop several safe and effective vaccines at unprecedented speed.

"We won't get back to normal quickly," Dale Fisher, chairman of the WHO's Outbreak Alert and Response Network, told a conference hosted by the Reuters news agency.

David Nabarro, a World Health Organization special Coronavirus envoy, has told the Swiss newspaper Solothurner Zeitung that Europe could face a third wave next year if governments "don’t build the necessary infrastructure."

He praised Asian countries such as South Korea: “People are fully engaged, they take on behaviors that make it difficult for the virus. They keep their distance, wear masks, isolate when they’re sick, wash hands and surfaces. They protect the most endangered groups.”

“Another element that is very clear in East Asia is that once you have brought down the case numbers … you don’t relax the measures,” he said. “You wait until the case numbers are low and stay low. You have to prepare the necessary measures to stop future outbreaks.”

According to the World Health Organization the Congo has successfully ended an Ebola outbreak while fighting Covid-19 at the same time.

WHO Africa chief Matshidiso Moeti has stated that "Overcoming one of the world's most dangerous pathogens in remote and hard to access communities demonstrates what is possible when science and solidarity come together," adding that "This constituted a major logistical challenge in terms of the implementation of response activities in a health system already weakened by previous epidemics and by a weak involvement of the community."

"Tackling Ebola in parallel with COVID-19 hasn't been easy, but much of the expertise we've built in one disease is transferable to another and underlines the importance of investing in emergency preparedness and building local capacity."

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said at a press conference that "the current pandemic challenges us very acutely, but it is very important that the [WHO] reform debate is to be held in parallel".

The draft EU document, which will represent the bloc's position at a WHO assembly in mid-November, calls on the agency to make public more quickly how and whether its member countries meet their obligations on information sharing in health crises.

"Based on aggregated survey data from countries across the Region, we can see, not surprisingly, that fatigue among those surveyed is increasing," World Health Organization's Europe director Hans Kluge said in a statement Tuesday. "Although fatigue is measured in different ways, and levels vary per country, it is now estimated to have reached over 60% in some cases."

While increasing fatigue levels were expected, Kluge urges "to reinvigorate and revive efforts to tackle the evolving COVID-19 challenges."

Dr. Michael Ryan, the head of emergencies at the World Health Organization, has stated that by "best estimates" around 10% of all people worldwide may have been infected with Covid-19 already.

This number is over 20 times higher than the number of confirmed and reported cases.

Health officials from the World Health Organization have announced that all 47 countries in the WHO’s Africa region have eradicated the crippling viral disease that attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours.

The World Health Organization advises children over the age of 12 should wear masks following the same conditions applied to adults in their country.

For children between six and eleven, the organization advises an analysis if the children are interacting with elderly or how widespread is the outbreak in their region.

Children aged five and under should not, under normal circumstances, wear masks.

The WHO admits little is known about how children transmit the new coronavirus but cites evidence that teenagers can infect others in the same way as adults.

The western Democratic Republic of Congo reports 48 Ebola cases since June 1st. 20 people have died. WHO emergency expert Mike Ryan: "This is still a very active outbreak, and I would say it is still a great concern."

Even though numbers are still low, Ryan voices concerns: "In the era of COVID, it is very important that we do not take our eyes off these other emerging diseases."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting a significant decrease in childhood vaccination rates since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak in March. The study shows a decline in vaccination rates of around 17% in 5-month-year-old children in May 2020, resulting in only approx. 50% of children being vaccinated. "The avoidable suffering and death caused by children missing out on routine immunisations could be far greater than Covid-19 itself," warns Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general.

"With lower than normal vaccination coverage among all age groups, children may be at higher risk for vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, whooping cough, chickenpox, and more," said CEO of Magnolia Health Aaron Sisk, adding that "even during these uncertain times, it’s important that we continue to encourage everyone to protect themselves, including getting immunizations to protect children from preventable health complications."

The German Health Minister Jens Spahn has announced that Germany will increase its contribution to the funds of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020 to over €500 million in total. He stated that "We need a strong, transparent and accountable WHO today more than ever" and that "We stand together in fighting global health problems".

The United States Senator Bob Menendez has announced via his Twitter account that the United States Congress has been informed that the President of the United States Donald Trump has officially withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization.

Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO's Africa regional director, said that the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating in all of Africa. The virus is spreading beyond major cities and into rural areas. Cases doubled in just 18 days to 200000. Moeti: "Even though these cases in Africa account for less than 3 percent of the global total, it's clear that the pandemic is accelerating."