Audio of the press briefing (mp3, 49 Mb [01:11:00])
1 December 2014
Speaker Key
BA Bruce Aylward
TJ Tarik Jasarevic
SB Simeon Bennett
TM Tom Miles
LI Lisa
JA Jamiel
SH Shin
GvH Gunilla von Hall
PK Peter Kenny
JH John Heilprin
GS Gabriela Sotomayor
NI Nina Larson
UM Unidentified Male Speaker
BA Folks, I’m terribly sorry to keep you waiting. For those of you who, I think some of you know, I’m always so concerned about getting on time for the briefings with the Palais here. I always bring my motorcycle on days that I know that we have a briefing because I know I can beat the traffic and I can come straight in and park. And today for the first time in five years I was stopped at the gate and they said you can’t bring a motor in without a sticker.
So I’m terribly sorry for being late, but I had even taken provision this morning to make sure I wouldn’t have kept you waiting, so apologies for that. I think we’re going to try and find a glass of water so that I’m not completely parched. Great, all right.
TJ Well, good afternoon everyone. I love having press briefings with Bruce; he always makes an introduction. Thank you very much for being with us today. As we have announced, we will tell you a little bit about, where do we stand with regards to the Ebola outbreak. As you know, today is the day that marks two months since our target of 70-70-60, as we call it, has been announced, and Bruce was several times due to report back on the progress and this is certainly what we will be doing today. So I’ll give the floor back to Bruce and then we will go for the questions after Bruce gives his opening remarks. Thank you.
BA So good afternoon, again, everybody and welcome. We’ve put together a few comments that I’m going to read through because that way I’ll make sure we cover the bigger points that will help orient you to where we stand right now. And then I’m happy to take questions as time permits. I think most of you know me, Bruce Aylward. I’m the Assistant Director General at WHO who’s been in charge of the response, our part of the response for a couple of months.
So just as background to today’s discussion, as all of you know, on the 18th September the Secretary General of the UN launched the United Nations Mission for the Ebola Emergency Response, what’s now known as UNMER, to scale up the response to this outbreak, with really a focus on ending the disease as you know in the most affected countries at that time,
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. I think most of you are aware the mission has been expanded since then to also assist Mali with the outbreak that they’re facing right now. The UN mission started its operation on the 1st October as you know and I thought before we go into the details about where we are today, I’ll just take you back a little bit to late September/early October and remind everybody of where we were at that time.
You will remember we were in a very different situation than we are today. At that time the disease was escalating in many places, exponential growth we were seeing in terms of the new cases. There was a real dearth of treatment beds for those cases as well as burial teams and this was what was contributing to that rapid growth that we were seeing at that time. And quite simply again, as many of you know, the sick in these places simply had nowhere to turn for appropriate and safe care. And this was again having bigger implications for the countries as you’re aware because the countries were in some cases being increasingly isolated as borders were closed, as restrictions were placed on travel unfortunately and other measures were taken, very concerning measures because of fear that this virus could spread further.
And the big question really 60 days ago you will remember was given that increasing gap that we were seeing between the rapid rise of the disease and the ability, the capacity to treat that, the concern was could that gap ever be closed and could we, so to speak, catch up with this virus and get the world positioned in a way that it could actually stop transmission.
So some very aggressive targets were set at that time to try really to concentrate the UN and international effort in support of the national efforts and, as most of you are aware, the famous target of 70-70-60 was coined at that time with the initial target being to ensure by the 1st December 70% of people with Ebola who died of the disease could be buried with a safe and dignified manner that would minimise the risk of spread, and also that 70% of people with the disease could be treated in a manner that would isolate them and prevent further spread of the disease as well. So yesterday completed 60 days, so today I’m here to give you an update and I think as you’re aware, Tony Banbury has just addressed the press in Sierra Leone along with David Nabarro, so a lot of what we’ll say will build on that obviously.
I did think it would be helpful to mention that during the period, as you know, I promised to the Palais press here that when I was in town I would try and brief you on what was happening, how the outbreak was unfolding and the response. I think I’ve done that twice and that’s because I’ve seen you even less than I’ve seen my family over the last two months. I’ve spent much of that time in these countries. I’ve been to all three of them, most of them multiple times. I’ve been in most of the worst affected districts, prefectures and counties as well, so I have a bit of, a much better sense of what’s actually happening on the ground and that informs obviously our update today.