If I could have your attention, we'll get started with the briefing this morning.
Just very quickly you just to tell you, the secretary general, of course, is in Berlin today.
He is joining Angela, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, at the opening ceremony for the Internet Governance Forum.
As you know, the the forum is an annual gathering of thousands of members of civil society, governments and technology specialists.
And this year it's held under the theme One World, One Net, One Vision.
I believe it was just last year that they had that event here in Geneva.
So the secretary general is expected to call for universal and affordable access to the Internet by 20-30, as well As for a world in which greater access to technology does not give rise to social and political divisions.
He is also expected today to visit a school that provides technology training for refugees.
And he'll have several bilateral meetings with government officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel.
I'm sure we'll have more information for you as the day evolves.
And of course, last night he had an informal dinner with the leaders of the Greek Cypriot community and the Turkish Cypriot community.
We issued his statement late last evening.
So I believe you have that for your reference.
Let's move on to our briefing this morning.
We have Peter guys, the Director of Strategic Information and Evaluation from you and AIDS to simply talk to you quickly about the report, report ahead of World AIDS Day.
He's joined by Charlotte Sector if you want to come up.
And we have put at the back the message of the Secretary General on World AIDS Day, which is of course celebrated every year on the 1st of December.
Put it in the front, just in the front there.
In his message this year, the Secretary General says that ending the AIDS epidemic by 20-30, as we committed to in the Sustainable Development Goals, will require a continuous collaborative effort.
the United Nations, governments, civil society and other partners have been working together to scale up access to health services and to halt new HIV infections.
More than 23 million people living with HIV were receiving treatment in 2018.
He concludes by saying we're communities are engaged, we see change happen, we see investment lead to results and we see equality, respect and dignity with communities.
So his message in French and English is available at the back for your information.
And on that I'll turn it to Mr Geiss or Charlotte.
You would say a few words before.
As you know, World Days days, the 1st of December, we have a report coming out.
We'll give you some briefings.
The reason we're doing the briefing today and not Friday is because the launch is taking place as we speak in Nairobi with our new Executive Director.
She will come to the Palais, we promise, and we will deliver on that.
So to no further ado, I will hand it over to Peter Geese.
And I will not venture myself to offer another pronunciation of my name and go straight to the report.
So the report, just so you can see it, it is called Power to the People.
So the team of the report is indeed that through handing power to communities and individuals that a lot of change can happen in relation to the HIV epidemic.
And so this comes in different forms.
Column use so there is several options for people who are at risk and so having a choice is actually good for people and for communities then as it relates to power to know we elaborate on the power for people to learn their status to have different options to learn their status And also for people who are living with HIV to know about with viral loads and the report dwells a little bit on how being suppressed having a suppressed virus actually means that there is no possibility for transmission of the virus and so coming back to the to the testing aspect First of all is that knowledge about HIV and its transmission is important and needs to be communicated through appropriate sexuality education we give examples in the report of how the time between infection and diagnosis of that infection actually is very important and needs to be as short as possible First of all is that knowledge about HIV and its transmission is important and needs to be communicated through appropriate sexuality education.
We highlight that it is typically longer for men than it is for women and we also give some example of how it is like different durations in different countries.
One of the points that is indicated in the report is that time between infection and diagnosis can be up to four years for man, older man living in or younger man living in in Mozambique.
Then just come back to the undetectable equals and transmissible concept that that is actually a very powerful thing.
Also to empower individuals that once they know that they are on effective treatment, it is actually very liberating in that they can be like functioning pretty much as any other person.
The next like a next declination of the power team is that both to thrive relates to people being on antiretroviral treatment and that really allows people to have full lives and have extended survival near the survival of people that do not live with HIV.
Our latest data show that by the middle of 2019 that there are 23.5 million people on treatment.
And so we were did I say what did I say?
Sorry, 25.52024 point five, let me say again, it is 24.5 and I just wanted to contrast that to the number that was earlier mentioned of 23.3, which is at the end of last year.
So while 24.5 is like an important achievement to celebrate, it is also clear and again highlighted in the report that it leaves like an important gap to the goal that was set out for the year 2020, which is of 30 million people being on antiretroviral treatment.
Also a large gap exists in the treatment for children.
We had already highlighted that earlier and in this report we also show that some of that gap is actually in older children because often we think that programmes need to like find newborns and give treatment.
That is true of course, but there is also a large number of older children.
We estimate more than 250,000 children between 10 and 14 year olds that actually do not benefit today from from antiretroviral treatment.
Then still in relation to power to tribe, we cite an example of a study in Iswatini where cash transfers were studied.
And so the the specific study in Isfatina actually shows an important reduction in HIV incidence if indeed gas transfers are given to girls that then are able to stay in school for longer than otherwise would be the case.
I just wanted to conclude by saying that again it is important to have the power to individuals and their communities and so an important aspect of that communities is also that communities of key populations like are very important in relation to knowledge also in relation to service delivery because often they are the organisations that are able to reach I just wanted to conclude by saying that again, it is important to have the power to individuals and their communities.
And so an important aspect of that communities is also that communities of key populations like are very important in relation to knowledge, also in relation to service delivery because often they are the organisations that are able to reach exactly the members of their community.
And in our report that last year, we actually indicated that more than 50% of all new infections actually occur among key populations and there are partners.
So that's an important, an important statistic to be aware of under key populations.
We understand the populations that have been shown in in just about all countries to have like a heightened risk of living with HIV.
So for us, they include sex workers, they include gay men and other men who have sex with men.
They include transgender people, people who inject drugs and final finally, also prisoners.
So with that, I think we conclude A brief overview of our report and we're open for any questions if that's appropriate.
Thank you very much, Mr Guys.
Peter, I was wondering if you could elaborate on the what percentage of treatment of children get treatment of AI antiretroviral because if I recall rightly it's much lower than adult men or women.
So can you give us what percentage of children this 250,000 how many children are receiving treatment at the moment And what is the gap in percentage terms?
I don't have the exact number in my head, but it is true that percentage of of children that are on treatment is much lower than is the case for for adult population.
So we could give you the exact numbers for that if, if that's OK.
And just to clarify that if I may that the number of 250,000 that I quoted is actually for the H category between 10 and 14 year olds.
So overall it is actually a larger number.
John, I have some of those numbers for you if you want.
Maybe the others want them.
The fact sheet, sure, maybe send it to the other colleagues as well.
Are there other questions?
Yes, Gabriela, thank you very much.
Gabriela Sotomayor, Mexican journalist, Do you have a data or any comments on Venezuela where there's a lack of treatment and there's a spread?
So if you can comment on that case?
Right, so there is some material in the report about Venezuela.
It is mostly like the crisis in Venezuela.
There is many people who are Venezuelans who actually have like left country to like because of the difficult situation there and are accessing services that are related to HIV and other countries.
And so that relates to testing, but it also relates to treatment.
At the same time, there is also efforts through the UN and through our own office to bring antiretrovirals to the country itself, to Venezuela itself.
And so those efforts are continuing.
So that's what I can say about Venezuela.
When you say efforts to bring, have you managed to deliver?
OK Kristian Lynn Meyer from the World Health Organisation has also joined us because he has a statement on World AIDS Day as well.
So let's give him the opportunity to speak about that as well.
Thank you very much and good day colleagues here.
We sent the announcement out yesterday.
Hopefully we had seen it already just one more time as you heard a lot about it already.
World AIDS Day on one December will be commemorated under the theme Communities Make the Difference and W Joe is highlighting the important role the affected communities play in the HIV response, while drawing global attention to the need for their broader engagement and strengthening primary healthcare.
Ahead of World AIDS Day on 27 November, WHO will release new recommendations on HIV testing services.
These include innovative approaches to help countries deliver more timely and accurate HIV testing services to the 8.1 million people that still remain to be diagnosed with HIV.
On to December, which is Monday, the 20th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa short ICASA 2019 will kick off in Kigali, Rwanda.
At this event, WHO will host over 20 key sessions engaging policy makers and implementers from across Africa and beyond.
Doctor Tedros is scheduled to be commemorating World AIDS Day 2019 during the Kigali Carefree Day Public health event, Car free day, by the way, public health event to promote healthy lifestyle and HIV services on one December, on Sunday.
And there will be also on one December the opening press conference in Kigali.
And on 2 December, Monday, Doctor Tedros, Director General of WHO will hold the opening keynote address at ICASA.
And again the announcement has been sent and shared.
I think Charlotte and our guest Mr Guys need to go.
So if there are no other questions for them, we will.
Thank you very much for being with us and look forward to celebrating World Leaf Day this year.
Ahmed, just I don't know if if you can send us the press release on our emails or not.
Sorry, what did you say the press, the press release if you can't send it to our emails, absolutely MO with pleasure.
And we have that number for you, John, right.
If I can just state that number, it is that 45% of children aged between 0 and 14 were on antiretroviraltry.
54% of children are on treatment, 54, sorry, 54% compared to 62% overall coverage of treatment for all ages.
Do we know how many million children out of the 24.5, how many million children are receiving treatment?
We can give you that too.
Are there any questions for Christian on this issue, on this issue, on this issue, because he will come back.
Just a clarification, how many new cases in Venezuela, HIV cases in in Venezuela?
Do you have some information to share on that?
Yeah, just to say that we will also have that number and we can share it, right.
Number of of people living with HIV in Venezuela.
You will return later with other topics.
Let's move on now to the office of the Special Envoy on Syria.
Jennifer Fenton is here to give you an update on what's happening with the Constitutional Committee.
On Monday, the Special Envoy for Syria, Mr Garo Peterson met with the two Co chairs of the Syrian Constitutional Committee to discuss the agenda for the second session of the Constitutional Committee.
The two Co Chairs each submitted a proposal for the agenda and these were exchanged.
There is not yet an agreement on the agenda and the discussions are continuing.
The Special Envoy also met with members of the Middle 3rd to inform them about the discussions with the Co Chairs.
Mr Peterson is continuing his consultations with the Co Chairs with the expectation of continuing the work with the Syrian constitutional small body of 45 members.
With respect to any further meetings, I will announce those as those become available to me.
So Mr Mr Peterson is consulting with the constitutional committee Co chairs Mr Peterson routinely engages with all other concerned and key actors with respect to this process.
Hi Jennifer could it's supposed to go on all week.
Is that correct that what is the just the pre planned schedule?
The expectation was that the Constitutional committee small members would be convening in Geneva this week.
Yes, Jan, yes, good morning there.
There have been reports that especially the government delegation were insisting of relocating the venue of the talks from Geneva to Syria, Damascus.
Is there anything to confirm or the meetings are to be convened in Geneva with the facilitation of the UN special envoy?
Yes, I know, but but there I said there have been reports that the government delegation would like to relocate the venue.
I'll refer you to the government delegation.
Mr Peterson has currently noted that the meetings are to be convened in Geneva.
Thank you very much, Jennifer.
Let's move on to Jens Lark from the Office of the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs on an embargoed briefing between OCHA and UNICEF and then the launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2020.
You'll have seen an announcement was sent to you this morning about an embargoed press briefing on the 3rd of December.
So that will be next Tuesday.
That is about the Global Humanitarian overview, formerly known as the Global Humanitarian Appeal, which we will launch on the 4th of December.
We have the press briefing the day before to give you a chance to to speak to Mark Lowcock, who will be here with Henrietta 4, the Executive Director of UNICEF.
We will meet here in this room at 3:00 PM.
The report itself will be available on Monday and I will send a message to you later this week where it can be picked up because I will have hard copies of the report that I will give to you.
Both the press conference and the report and all the information in it is embargoed till the 4th of December, the day of the launch itself.
And we release all that information at 6:00 AM Geneva time that morning.
So that is the idea that we are basically giving you all the material in advance of the actual launch so that you have a chance to to cover it.
I ought to tell you that the launch, the main launch will of course take place here in Geneva, but there will be launches on the same day in other countries in the world, other capitals, particularly in Berlin.
We'll have in Brussels, we'll have in London and we'll have in Washington.
So the report will be available there as well.
But the main launch is here, the embargoed press conference on on the 3rd.
We from our side and Mark Lowcock will speak of course about the global humanitarian overview, the needs and the plans and what we need in terms of funding for next year.
While Henrietta 4 will speak of will speak about the UNICEF appeal, which is called Humanitarian Action for Children.
Those two appeals are kind of complementary.
They are aligned to each other.
So the main purpose is really to give you an idea of what the UN and our NGO partners are planning in emergency situations around the world for 2020.
Can you remind me what was the appeal for last December?
Mr Lokok asked for how much money?
That was a record number, but what was the amount?
So the record number, it was about 22 million when we launched it last year.
There is a slight difference in the way we calculate the, the appeal amount and the number of people who are included, however, and we will explain that to you and I it, it is in the report that I'll give you on Monday.
We have recalculated last year's appeal so that it is directly comparable with the numbers that we are that we are using this time round.
It's, it's a very complicated exercise as you realise.
So whenever we change methodology slightly, we need to check we we need to look at what we have done before so that you can actually compare the appeals to each other, but that we have done.
So those numbers will be will be available for you on on Monday.
There are no other questions.
Thank you very much, Jens, for being with us this morning.
And Christian Lynn Meyer from WHO returns to the podium with information on other topics, including an update on Ebola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
I'm coming fresh from the briefing this morning, so bear with me if I have to scribble through our three notes here.
But just to add on what Executive Director said, Yes said on Friday, Michael Ryan, the security situation in Bini has definitely worsened overnight or throughout the last days.
What we see is community violence against the security situation.
That's very important for us because it's not a violence directed against the Ebola response and it's not a violence directed against W Jo.
But it comes came to a level where from our 120 staff in Bini overnight 49 had to be evacuated over the through the airport with escorts and then flown out direction Goma.
This operation might be still ongoing or is finished, but that's what it was so far.
This is mainly mission non critical staff which was relocated at this point.
Important of course in this message is that while 49 were relocated, 71 remain on the spot to this point to assure as good as possible the best or at least the minimum support to the Ebola response.
Because as it was said on Friday already every day, every hour, we cannot go out contact.
Well, either the contacts or trace the contacts help the communities with dignified burials, go out for vaccinations and for treatments is a is a lost case and will most certainly or very certainly result in rising cases.
So we need to do what we can to keep the Ebola operation going on the ground on the spot.
But just to give you a bit of a of a comparison figure, as you might remember, typically the contract tracing reached in the about more than 90% of people.
So it's in the **** 90s what the the typical contact tracing success is.
So you can see where the lack lack here is so.
But again, as as the community violence is not directed at the the Ebola response, we can at least and we will try as long as possible to maintain a minimum support for the community, maybe to beef this up with a few figures right now where we are.
So in the last week, 7 cases were reported out of four health zones, one in Ocha, one in Mandina, one in Bini and four in Mubalaco.
These are all AP linked, so that means they all come from contacts we are aware of, from cases we are aware of.
In total right now, as of 24 November, we have 3303 cases with 2199 deaths and 1077 survivors.
Yes, let me repeat the figures.
Yeah, Christian, last Friday, the 2 Doctor Ryan was talking about this **** risk person that died and the 200 **** risk persons that needed to be traced, especially 62 I think that were urgent.
What's the latest on that?
Did you manage to reach any of the **** risk person that you needed to trace?
We didn't have an update on this individual case as as I don't have details on the individual case following.
So the, the only case unfortunate in terms of contact tracing I could get this morning was the overall amount.
I said that instead of typically having more than 90% success in tracing, we we're down to 17%.
And that's that's definitely critical.
But again, many, many national staff continue to work out there and it's the burial teams, the tracking teams, the tracing teams, all these are doing as good as they can.
And whenever there's a window of opportunity to move out and go to the areas much needed they they do so.
Also, the staff relocated to Goma will continue leading or doing their job from there.
So this is all possible on the ground.
But of course the the violence needs to stop.
We have enough other areas where we cannot go due to, to, to violence, military violence or or rebel violence going on.
So this is very bad for the able to response.
This is a very serious situation.
And just yesterday, the UN peacekeeping mission there, the Manusko was calling for common responsibility as violent protests continued in Beni.
The UN peacekeeping office in Beni was was damaged after an attack and as question said staff WHO but also UN staff members were redeployed to other sites for their safety.
The Secretary General, Special Representative Leila Zerogi, at the invitation of the government yesterday took part in a meeting at the National Security Council that was chaired by the President with ministers and military leaders.
She stressed that she understood the people's anger and the frustration of the population after further deadly attacks by the allied democratic forces.
The mission will be working closely with the authorities to jointly find solutions for the people of Beni.
The mission has very much called on all political, religious and media leaders to support a return to calm.
This is absolutely necessary to fight the ADF, but also to continue, as Christian said, the response to Ebola.
And I have some details on the number of peacekeepers we have, if you need those there.
Let me maybe quickly add on that statement.
So yes, the, the frustration, the anger of the population on the ground is very much understandable.
But we need order, law and order restored in order to carry out vital, vital operations.
And again, our, especially the national Congolese staff is relentlessly working, the doctors, the nurses, the burial teams.
And it's a huge effort to keep the response going.
Did I see a hand there, Nick?
I mean, the, the, the attack seems to have been motivated by frustration that MONUSCO troops didn't intervene.
Why didn't they, Is there was that against their mandate?
What's what, what are the specifics on that?
And is there now an expectation that the MONUSCO presence in Beni is going to be significantly reinforced?
So is there another category?
And I wondered if you could just give us an update on what happened in Uganda.
Is this your concern there?
So quickly on the numbers, we always have the ones on the treatment which we don't report out and that's that's normally the discrepancy between the the numbers.
Yeah, I'll check on Uganda maybe while I'm not sure I have something with me on Uganda, but maybe while we have a response on the other question, I'll check.
Nick, I don't have any more information on this.
I believe I've seen something, but I think the mission is doing what it can to of course play its role in in that region.
I don't have any more to to tell you on that, but I'll have a look at at it and return with more information if I have it.
Stephanie, did you have something clarification please?
Christian, have you evacuated then these 49, are they all expats?
Have you evacuated all expats or is there are there some first please?
That's important because the operation keeps going on both from coma with those staff relocated to coma and also with those still remaining in Vini.
It's a mix of of staff I don't have to break down, but it's not only internationals, it's a mix of stuff really.
It's about what's the question about who's most critical to the to the mission to continue on the ground to the mission needs and those who were not immediately necessary could be relocated.
For example, communication, as much as I hate personally to say it is somebody who's not necessary mission critical.
So it needs to be relocated to Goma and can, of course, perfectly work from there.
Is the Allied Democratic Forces on the UN terror list, some of the wires are referring to them as Islamic terrorists.
I'll have to check on that.
Are there other questions on this issue?
OK, you have another topic question.
Three more announcements actually, because it's these are heavy weeks in terms of events.
So it's the announcement of course from our side.
You heard already and let me go in chronological order.
Tomorrow, 27 November, we have the briefing on new global mortality figures for measles for 2018 and the update on 19.
Tonight there might actually be a disease outbreak news coming out on the measles situation, the current 1.
So This is why we would like, if this happens, to include this in tomorrow.
Tomorrow's briefing the the W joint, the USCD CS will release the global figures next week.
So this is an embargoed briefing until next week, but the briefing is tomorrow, 2:00 in press room 1 on Friday.
Also at 2:00 and also in press room one, we will launch the first report tracking global progress on health and climate change.
This is especially ahead of the COP 25 in Madrid, which is starting next week and where we will of course be heavily represented as well.
So we will launch this first report providing the global findings from over 100 countries.
That will happen Friday 29 November at 2:00.
And finally, once again, a virtual press briefing.
This is the invitation to the virtual press briefing on the launch of the World Malaria Reports.
So we're going literally through all the diseases now.
This report offers an in depth analysis of trends in malaria control and elimination at the global, regional and country levels.
And we will share the key findings from this 29 report in an embargoed telephone virtual press briefing on Monday to December 330, Geneva time.
And this will be led by Doctor Pedro Alonso, who you all know, the director of the Global Malaria Programme.
And we'll have other speakers on it, including from the Rollback Malaria Partnership to End Malaria.
Are there questions for WHO?
Thank you then Christian for coming today.
We will just finish off with a few announcements in terms of press conferences next week.
You will have seen that the the press conference we'd announced with the Coffee Announce Foundation has been pushed back.
So we will come back to you with another date and time when they decide to hold the press conference again next Wednesday on the 27th of November.
Well, I think Christian has just mentioned that The Who will have a an embargoed press conference on new global mortality figures for measles for 2018 and an update on 2019.
Then on Friday the 29th of November at 12:30 PM in press room 1, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies will hold AQ and a session about IFRC humanitarian priorities with Francesco Rocca who is the President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Then on Monday the 2nd of December there will be a UNHCR expert press briefing which will be embargoed until the 3rd of December.
This will be about the key findings of four years of UNHCR cash based assistance programmes for refugees and ID.
PS Then on Monday the 2nd of December at 11 AM in press room one another UNHCR expert press briefing also embargoed.
I know that's the same thing.
Sorry, I'm repeating myself and Jens has told you about the.
OCHA and UNICEF press briefing on the 3rd of December at 3 in Press Room 3, presenting the annual Global Humanitarian Overview 2020.
In terms of meetings, the Committee against Torture is beginning this morning the review of the report of Niger, the last report scheduled for this session.
It will hear tomorrow afternoon the answers of the delegation of Niger to the questions raised this morning by Committee members.
After what the committee will meet in private until the end of the 68th session, which ends on the 6th of December.
It will issue its concluding observations on the report of the six countries reviewed the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which opened yesterday.
It's hundredth session will begin tomorrow afternoon.
It's consideration of the report of Colombia and during this session, which lasts until the 13th of December at Pally Wilson.
The Committee has planned to success successively review the reports of Colombia, Cambodia, Ireland, Uzbekistan and Israel and the details are on the website.
Please remember that next Friday is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
This is celebrating on 29th of November there will be a special meeting at the UN office at Geneva and this year the meeting will take place in the Council chamber.
At 10 AM on Friday, Ms Valovaya will read out a statement by UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez.
We have already put out at the back that statement.
It is under embargo until the 27th of November morning time.
You have it in English and in French at the back.
And that's all I have for you today.
Thank you very much and have a nice afternoon.
Well, could I just ask one thing, could what are the other countries under review by CAT?
Thank you very much, everyone.
