The United Nations Office at Geneva
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WHO Presser Continuity
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36:21
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MP4
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2.6 GB
STORY: WHO – Global Hub for Pandemic Intelligence
TRT: 02 min 51s
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / GERMAN
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 5 MAY 2021 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Wide shot, podium with speakers in WHO headquarters.
- SOUNDBITE (German with English translation) —German Federal Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel:
“Die Welt hat gelernt das wie eine globalere Herausforderung wie die aktuelle COVID-19 Pandemie nur gemeinsam begegnen können. Und mittlerweile haben auch alle erkannt, dass die WHO dabei die zentrale globale Gesundheit Institution ist. Eine wesentliche Grundlage des Kampfes gegen künftige Pandemie sind Daten. Daten die, wenn man sie bündelt und mit dem richtigen Analyse Werkzeuge vorarbeitet Erkenntnisse hervorbringen, die wir alleine jeder für sich niemals oder zumindest niemals so schnell entdecken könnten.”
“The world has learned that we can only tackle a global challenge such as the present COVID-19 pandemic through joint action. Meanwhile, we all have also realised the World Health Organization is THE central global health institution in this effort. An essential basis for the battle against future pandemics is data. Data that, when bundled and processed with the correct analytical tools can produce results that could never be obtained by working individually and alone, or at least not so quickly.” - Wide medium shot, podium with speakers in WHO headquarters, WHO logo to rear.
- SOUNDBITE (English) — WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed gaps in the global system for pandemic and epidemic intelligence. And it is a fact of nature that there will be more viruses that will emerge with the potential of sparking epidemics or pandemics.”
- Wide medium shot, podium with speakers in WHO headquarters, WHO logo to rear.
- SOUNDBITE (English) — WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “Viruses move fast, but data can move even faster, with the right information, countries and communities can stay one step of an emerging risk and save lives.”
- Wide medium shot, podium with speakers in WHO headquarters, WHO logo to rear.
- SOUNDBITE (English) — German Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn: “Globally we all need to work together to be better prepared for the next pandemic and the second is that we must strengthen WHO’s leading and coordinating role, particularly in pandemic preparedness.”
- Wide medium shot, podium with speakers in WHO headquarters, WHO logo to rear.
- SOUNDBITE (English) — WHO Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Dr Michael Ryan: “There are many problems to solve here and issues around transparency and accountability cannot necessarily be solved by new technologies, but also in this response and in many other responses in my experiences in the past, being able to generate early insights as to disease risk and vulnerability and be able to take immediate action has been a very important factor in being able to mitigate disease quickly.”
- Wide medium shot, podium with speakers in WHO headquarters, WHO logo to rear.
- SOUNDBITE (English) — WHO Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Dr Michael Ryan: “There are signals that may occur before epidemics happen, there are risks that emerge at the animal-human interface, there is data on everything from climate to mobility, to as I said animal-related data that can give us pre-signals, signals before epidemics start of high risks and of high vulnerabilities. The hub will allow us to develop tools for that sort of predicted analytics, it will also give us tools for managing during epidemics, in terms of managing societal response.”
- Close-up, WHO logo.
‘Pandemic hub’ plan unveiled by WHO’s Tedros and Germany’s Merkel
An international hub for pandemic control is to open in Berlin to ensure better preparedness and transparency in the fight against likely future global health threats, the UN health agency announced on Wednesday.
Supported by the German Government, the centre will specialize in gathering epidemic intelligence, data, surveillance and analytics innovation.
It will open later this year, according to Chancellor Angela Merkel, who explained how she had first discussed the idea last autumn with World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“The world has learned that we can only meet a global challenge such as the current COVID-19 pandemic through joint action,” said Chancellor Merkel, in a pre-recorded video message, broadcast during a press conference at the WHO in Geneva.
“Meanwhile, we have also realised that the WHO is the central global health institution in this effort. An essential basis for the fight against future pandemics is data. Data that, when bundled and processed with the correct analytical tools, yields insights that we could never discover on our own, or at least not so quickly.”
Echoing the need for greater cooperation and information-sharing between countries to complement existing international health regulations, Tedros underscored the likely reoccurrence of new global health threats:
"The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed gaps in the global systems for pandemic and epidemic intelligence. And it’s a fact of nature that there will more viruses that will emerge with the potential of sparking epidemics or pandemics. Viruses move fast, but data can move even faster. With the right information, countries and communities can stay one step of an emerging risk and save lives. Modern technologies give us unprecedented tools for collecting, analysing and disseminating data in real time around the world. That’s what the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence aims to do."
Although “viruses move fast… data can move even faster”, the WHO chief insisted, adding that “with the right information, countries and communities can stay one step of an emerging risk and save lives. Modern technologies give us unprecedented tools for collecting, analysing and disseminating data in real time around the world. That’s what the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence aims to do."
A super-computer will help the new centre to “predict, prevent, detect prepare for and respond to pandemic and epidemic risks worldwide”, according to WHO.
WHO Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Dr Michael Ryan highlighted the importance of taking immediate action and sharing information when tackling future public health threats:
“There are many problems to solve here and issues around transparency and accountability cannot necessarily be solved by new technologies, but also in this response and in many other responses in my experiences in the past, being able to generate early insights as to disease risk and vulnerability and be able to take immediate action has been a very important factor in being able to mitigate disease quickly.”
Dr Ryan highlighted how the Berlin centre would help to identify “signals that may occur before epidemics happen”, as “there are risks that emerge at the animal-human interface, there is data on everything from climate to mobility, to as I said animal-related data that can give us pre-signals, signals before epidemics start of high risks and of high vulnerabilities. The hub will allow us to develop tools for that sort of predicted analytics, it will also give us tools for managing during epidemics, in terms of managing societal response.”
German Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn noted that the WHO Hub would act as a “global early warning surveillance system”.
It will support the work of public health experts and policy-makers in all countries, to help them respond rapidly to future public health emergencies, he added.
“Globally we all need to work together to be better prepared for the next pandemic and the second is that we must strengthen WHO’s leading and coordinating role, particularly in pandemic preparedness.”
ends
Teleprompter
My first week as Director General in 2017, I had the owner of attending the G20 summit in Hamburg, where under Chancellor Merkel's leadership, Germany put a very strong emphasis on health and emergency preparedness years before COVID-19.
As part of Germany's G20 presidency, Chancellor Merkel also initiated the first ever meeting of G20 health ministers, which included a health emergency simulation exercise.
In October last year.
I was honoured to speak to Chancellor Merkel, which is when we first discussed the idea for a new centre that would serve as a global platform to enhance global capacity for pandemic and epidemic intelligence.
Chancellor Merkel cannot be without with us live, but we're delighted that she has recorded a video message for today's event.
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My deep gratitude to Chancellor Merkel for her leadership and partnership.
Of course, like every great leader, Chancellor Merkel is supported by a great team.
Even as he has led the response to COVID-19 at home, Germany's Federal Minister of Health Jens Schpahn has played an essential leadership role on the global stage.
Jens, thank you so much once again for your leadership and partnership.
And you have the floor.
Tedros, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for this opportunity.
And Tedros, thank you very much for the good cooperation that we do have between the Federal Republic of Germany and the World Health Organisation.
Germany has always been, as I just mentioned, a strong supporter of The Who, particularly during the Covic 19 pandemic, and we have always called for a strong investment in preparedness.
Covic 19 has taught us many, many lessons, but today I want to highlight just two.
The first is that globally we all need to work together to better be better prepared for the next pandemic.
And the second is that we must strengthen WH OS leading and coordinating role, particularly in pandemic preparedness.
And there is one sentence I keep on repeating.
That is that an organisation like The Who can only be as good as we, as the Member States let it be, and that accounts for financial resources.
But that counts for cooperation and quick information just in case, for example, of an emergency too.
Several panels and committees have been reviewing the global response to the pandemic and their reports and recommendations will be announced at the World Health Assembly later this month.
They will call for nothing less than a global reset in pandemic preparedness.
They will clarify that in order to be best prepared, we must not focus on the last crisis, but rather on the next one.
This has also been the message of the Global Preparedness and Monitoring Board.
Ladies and gentlemen, the time to act is now.
That is, after all, the meaning of the word preparedness.
Germany fully supports the leading and coordinating role of WHO in pandemic preparedness, and therefore the essential function of WHO has to be further stringent if we are to build back better.
WHO needs the capacities to detect any outbreak that has the potential to become a domestic, original or even global health crisis before the ****** becomes a sad reality?
The world continuously faces pandemic risks.
Mutations of existing pathogens, expansions of diseases to previously unaffected populations, and diseases spillover events from animals to human creates A rapidly changing risk environment.
So far, the world is insufficiently prepared for this.
In our highly interconnected world, pandemic risks need to be identified as early as possible to prevent rapid global transmission of an infectious disease, as we have all witnessed and still do with COVID-19.
While we all have made progress in developing public health intelligence and risk analysis capacities, A globally concerted approach under WH OS leadership must be firmly established.
There's a clear need for a stronger global early warning, alert and emergency response system with improved public health intelligence and interdisciplinary risk analysis that supports decisions makers worldwide.
Better data and better analytics are key for better decisions.
AWHO Hub for pandemic and epidemic intelligence can make the difference for a safer future.
AWHO hub is embedded in WH OS Health Emergencies programme and that focuses on the development of a global data ecosystem to produce timely insights and tools for policy makers before, during and after epidemic and pandemic events.
Also related to new dimensions we need to deal with such as info demics.
This is why Germany was proud and excited when Director General traders proposed to Chancellor Merkel in fall last year that we work together to establish this global capacity.
Today I'm honoured to announce with the Director General Tedros that The Who Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence will be established here in Berlin this year, with the full support of the German government.
Berlin offers a vivid, enabling environment for the interlinkages between public health and digitalization.
Key digital players have moved to Berlin in recent years, as have key global health partners.
In the area of public health, Berlin is the base of the Robot Koch Institute, which is currently setting up a major centre for artificial intelligence and public health.
Furthermore, with Europe's largest University Hospital, the charity, Berlin is a key European centre for translational research.
Berlin universities are centres of excellence and will support the multidisciplinary approach required for preparedness and response.
Berlin is a hub for increased private sector investment in public health.
Berlin also hosts key international multi sector FORA with relevance for global health, the World Health Summit, the Munich Security Conference and the Global Solutions Summit.
We are very confident that this local environment will provide numerous opportunities for synergies with a new double edge, OH hub for pandemic and epidemic intelligence being a powerful platform and connector for true global cooperation.
Only by working together, we can be safe.
And Tetorus, I would be very, very happy to welcome you as soon as possible here in Berlin.
Again, thank you, thank you, Thank you so much, Hans.
Thank you so much, Mr Shbahan.
And please accept my deep personal appreciation for everything you have done over the past few years and especially during the past difficult 12 months.
And we're very, very grateful for Germany's financial support for The Who Hub and for hosting it in Berlin, where it will benefit, as you said, from being in an in an innovative environment.
As Minister Shpahan said, rapid and reliable information is essential in every area of health, but specially when it comes to preparing for, detecting and responding to epidemics and pandemics.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed gaps in the global systems for pandemic and epidemic intelligence, and it is a fact of nature that there will be more viruses that will emerge with the potential of sparking epidemics or pandemics.
Viruses move fast, but data can move even faster.
With the right information, countries and communities can stay one step of an emerging risk and save lives.
Modern technologies give us unprecedented tools for collecting, analysing and disseminating data in real time around the world.
That's what The Who Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence aims to do.
Hosted in Berlin, The Who Hub will be a global centre that works with partners around the world to lead innovations in pandemic and epidemic intelligence, data, surveillance and analytics.
The Who Hub will be part of The Who Health Emergencies Programme and we expect it to play a vital role in the global health security ecosystem.
It builds on WH OS existing work through the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network and the Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources Initiative, which scans online news sources for reports of public health threats.
Indeed, it was EIOS system that picked up the first reports of a new virus in Wuhan, China in the early hours of 3031 December 2019.
Our aim is that The Who Hub will take this work to the next level, generating better data and better analytics for better decision making and a safer world.
Christian, back to you.
Thank you very much.
And with this, we open the floors to a few question.
We don't have too much time, but we'll try to handle as many as possible.
The first question goes to Christian DPA Deutsche pressing into a floor is yours.
Thank you, Christian.
Thank you, Mr.
Thank you, Mr Shan.
I have AI two very short questions.
One is can you just say tell us how much money has to be invested in how many jobs are created?
But my qualitative question is you are still dealing with national governments and no amount of data can force them to share information or to react on information by understanding is that at the beginning of this pandemic, the problem was that a lot of countries just didn't act, although the information was there.
WHO did actually warn countries to get ready?
How do you think that this new centre is going to help solve that particular problem?
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Christiana.
Let me look Doctor Mike Ryan, the executive director for WH OS Health Emergencies Programme.
Yeah, thank you.
Leave questions of investment on on the German side to to colleagues in Germany because there's such a large ecosystem being created with regard to WH OS investment with the support of Germany.
Maybe Bernard Schwarzander could take that question, but I will take the the second part of the question.
And, and you are correct, there are many problems to solve here and issues around transparency and accountability cannot necessarily be solved by new technologies.
But also in this response and in many other responses in my experience in the past, being able to generate early insights as to disease risk and vulnerability and be able to take immediate action has been a very important factor in, in, in being able to mitigate disease quickly.
So from that perspective, the, the, the, the hub aims to bring together partners from around the world to develop better access to data, to develop tools that we need to generate the insights we need before, during and after pandemics, but also to build the, the, the communities of practise to build a trust between partners in sharing that data, in sharing those insights.
So we aim to, to, to bring that whole process together across the world with institutional partners, private public sector and especially and directed from WH OS perspective in the service of our Member States.
The International Health Regulations and other processes are there to hold member states to account for the actual sharing of verified information with WHO for the purposes of confirming epidemics.
And that will continue.
So the, the we, we want to be careful at this point, the to, to, to look at the Hub as a centre of innovation.
It's going to drive the kind of tools development we need.
It's going to drive data access.
But ultimately it is for the Member States of WHO to decide on what the rules of the game are regarding transparency and accountability.
Thank you so much, Doctor Ryan.
And I'm looking at Federal Minister Spahn for the first part.
Well, just to add to Mike and then Paul Suvail, our Deputy Head of the the department, will will tell you some details on, on finance.
But just what Mike has said, that is actually what I find very important is that HARP like the one we plan or as I mentioned before, The Who 7 counts for the European Union and the ECDC, by the way, can only be as good as we as states, national states, let them be.
And as I meant, as I said, that's not just financial resources, that is just by being transparent, by giving information in the case of an outbreak, for example, if it is domestic, regional or even more, only if we give information, only if we are transparent and share our informations with with WHO and other national states, we can make a difference.
And that is actually what you really when talking about reforms that WHO needs in, in some aspects, there's definitely one reform, National states need 2.
That is the willingness and readiness to really be transparent in in such a situation when it comes to preparedness or even with dealing with with an outbreak.
For the details, please, Paul.
Yeah, thank you, minister.
And if I may just chip in on the financial questions that were asked in this regard.
One thing is and that as Jim has also shown, its political commitment is of course also underpinned by a financial one.
So the Hub can obviously rely on a predictable core funding by Germany, which is around 30 million annually.
However, also WHO will work and Mike can add on to this with partners and donors obviously to attain an annual budget for the Hub and its ecosystem to continuously finance it.
In terms of personnel also this is a question the Hub is, is owned by the and it's Member States.
So how that will play out in terms of personal movement and mobility or new recruitments, I would hand over to Mike to elaborate a little bit on that.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And this was Paul Subbail from the Ministry of Health to Mike Ryan, please.
Yes, thank you.
Thank you Paul and, and, and thank you for all your support and the practical arrangements to move this forward with with with Doctor Schwartz under and many others.
The we do see an expansion of staff.
Clearly we are constrained at the secretariat level and having the critical mass of staff particularly to develop the tools and the analytics that that we need going forward.
So there will be, and we have budgeted for an increased staff level, but there will be a limited number of what we would call WHO core staff.
One of the innovations that Doctor Tedros has brought to the organisation is to create new kinds of platforms that allow a different kind of collaboration with our member states.
So we envisage many, many other positions for fellows, for visiting fellows, for others to join and come and do the work.
A little bit like what the the Swiss German governments and the other partners in CERN have done in creating a platform on to which other people can come and apply their knowledge and skills.
This isn't about expanding WHO to do the work, it's about creating a platform with Germany where everyone can come and contribute and this becomes a facilitating environment.
We bring the best minds, we bring the best ideas and we facilitate that with the infrastructure and the tools and the supercomputing and all of the things that we need.
So the vision is not to create another big bureaucratic WHO institution somewhere.
It really speaks to what Doctor Tedros has been saying about transformation.
Transformation and WHO.
People speak about reform and they speak about all of these words.
This is about transforming the way this organisation engages with the world.
Dr Tedros has been doing that now since the beginning of his tenure.
And this, in a sense, represents that new way of looking at the world, a much more dynamic, engaged WHO?
Dynamically engaging with partners, all of whom can contribute to the process and that's bringing in our colleagues in the epidemic intelligence from open sources.
Many of our colleagues like Promade and Health MAP and, and and so many others, we're working with CERN, with Microsoft, with so many other entities around the world, our existing partners in GORN.
This is about WHO, with the support of Germany, doing what I think exactly what we should be doing is creating, facilitating, coordinating, stimulating and allowing others to take the real innovative steps to move us forward in this regard.
Thank you so much for all these answers.
Next question goes to Agnes Pereiro from AFP Jean France Press.
Agnes, please unmute yourself.
Yes, hi everybody.
Thank you for taking my my question.
I have a question that just a follow up of the, the answer before we are talking about €30 million for Germany and how much for, for WHO you could give us the the overall budget please, that would be very helpful and to confirm it's in Euros.
And then my, my question as doctor, Doctor Tudor says there is already intelligence services and like to say that the EI OS system pick up the the first reports of the new virus.
So I thought also that The Who has some some data for detect a new epidemics as such system.
So what gap in the differences of the detection I this have plans to to fill to fulfil?
What do you want to do more and and why not in Geneva?
Why to go in Berlin?
I mean, Berlin has good, good things, but why not to to stay in Geneva?
Thank you.
Thank you, Agnes.
For another one simple question.
I was told that minister, Federal Minister Spahn, unfortunately had to leave, but he's now represented by the person who had before.
That's Paul Tubal, the deputy Director General for European and International Health Politics.
And I will ask Mr Tubal maybe to pick part of the first part of the question, and then we'll take the rest here.
Mr Tubal, yes, yes, thank you very much and I'm happy to answer this question.
In terms of funding, German funding to WHOI was mentioning the core funding, right, that Germany delivers to WHO, which is €30 million.
Indeed on the global budget for WHO.
This is my colleagues from WHO best place to give you the exact figures.
But let me just answer the question that you mentioned with regards to the location, the hub, why it's in Berlin.
As you heard the Federal Minister of Health had outlined that why Berlin is, is the, the appropriate location for this hub.
And in this regard, I would like to mention that this is a global hub.
This is not a national hub.
This is a global hub.
We want to work with a multitude of different partners around the globe.
And it's truly based on on a large input of members and partners from all over the world.
This hub really is also complemented in a way by Germany's global health strategy.
If you think about ultimately what it really deals with is responsibility, innovation and partnership.
And this is actually what the hub is being designed to, to deliver to make the world safer for everybody.
And if we can achieve that with this hub, then every penny that we invest and every effort that we invested jointly as the world is the right way to go.
Mike, over to you on the funding.
Thank you.
Thank you, Paul.
Yes, we we are still working out the detailed budgets going forward and I've been discussing are in discussions with with many donors at the G7 level and beyond an institutional foundational donors as to but further funding is going to be needed.
The start up costs as as have been covered by by Germany.
But as we move forward in terms and the core costs of staff are covered within that.
But the real costs will come later when we start to develop the systems that we need.
And we are asking and reaching out to many partners in order to develop the budgets that will allow us to accelerate that activity going forward.
With regard to and your, your question is well asked regarding the epidemic intelligence from open sources, EIOS is a fantastic project.
As I said, we've very much integrated with Promed, with G Fin, with help map and other entities.
It does provide very early signals.
It's an AI driven system and allows very early detection of public signals that are already in the public domain.
It's currently been rolled out in, in in a number of countries with a number of countries piloting the system.
So it's not just been developed as a global system, it's been developed with national applications.
So we've developed a global system.
It can then be applied nationally.
And from that perspective it is a, a foundational block of an ecosystem.
But our problem and our challenge is that that's when epidemics occur.
There are signals that may occur before epidemics happen.
There are risks that emerge at the animal human interface.
There is data on everything from climate to mobility to, as I said, animal related data that can give us pre signals, signals before epidemic start of **** risks and of **** vulnerabilities.
The the hub will allow us to develop tools for that sort of predictive analytics, will also give us tools for managing during epidemics in terms of managing societal response, managing so many other aspects of the response.
Data drives everything now.
Data drives all forms of decision making.
The problem is data is no not always accessible.
There are huge costs associated with academic, private and public sector partners try to access data.
It's a huge barrier.
And if there's a massive equity issue in accessing that data, there are huge issues in in accessing the powerful analytic tools that are needed to look at that data.
And equally, there are gaps in capacity with people having the ability to use those tools in order to gain those insights.
The centre will will operate across that whole ecosystem.
It's not just about detecting the signal in the public domain.
EOS is doing that and we will continue to work on that.
And EOS will be a big part of the the hub, we hope and it will drive a lot of the collaborations.
But it's a much bigger idea than than just having a straight detection of, of, of response.
I think that pretty much answers the question.
We've also been joined by Doctor Oliver Morgan, who's one of the thought leaders behind this.
I don't know, Oliver, if you wanted to add anything to that response.
Right, Thank.
Excuse me.
Thanks Mike.
Yes, as you mentioned, the EIOS initiative is will be in 55 countries by the end of this year and additional countries still.
And it's really proving a very, very important initiative to collectively identify signals.
But as Doctor Ryan mentioned, it's really going beyond the detection of new signals and also continuing to assess risks as events unfold because as we know that an outbreak starts, you're not entirely sure where it will move or how it will develop.
And so we need to continue to invest in initiatives such as EOS, but other initiatives as well to really manage and understand that risk much better.
Thanks.
Thanks so much, all.
We'll try to get another question in.
And next one goes to Laurent Sierra from the Swiss News Agency.
Laurent, please unmute yourself.
Thank you Christian for taking my question.
A question to Director General, I assume you have consulted beyond Germany with a lot of different health minister to try to assess what they think about the these new initiatives.
So is there broad enthusiasm or after the different controversies on info sharing, are there some countries that might be reluctant to take part to the initiative?
Thank you, Doctor Ryan, Sister, please.
I think there's been a hugely positive response to this because this is a continuation of theme.
This is not something absolutely new.
This is accelerating what we've already been doing with our member states.
We've, we've certainly had discussions with G7 and we've been engaged with the pandemic preparedness platform of the G7.
We've been talking to various partners all around the world.
So from that perspective, everybody understands and everybody knows that we need this and who should be doing this and accelerating this work.
The difference here is we have a member state who is absolutely committed to providing the platform on which we can do this.
This will be WH OS work.
It doesn't change a thing in the sense of what we want to do, but what it does is gives us the capacity to fully accelerate and expand that global partnership.
And Minister Spann has said it, this is not a hub in Germany per SE.
This is a global hub for everybody to come together and use this.
And we will be laying this out within our budgets for 2223.
We will be further consulting with member states.
I believe we've been consulting with the global outbreak of Alerted Response Network, the EIOS partners, and we'll obviously be consulting in much more detail with our Member States through the regions and at the upcoming World Health Assembly.
Yeah, just a little bit too.
Mike had already said the main issues.
We have been working on this for some time now, as I said in my speech and our discussion with Germany, with Chancellor was last year.
But lately many recommendations coming from different corners and they all suggest actually the importance of the strengthening our surveillance system.
So this is coming from different institutions, including, you know, countries or member states.
So I think there is a consensus in strengthening the early warning system.
So that's why this is going to be very, very important in epidemic preparedness and, and, and response.
And that has been said, we have already many initiatives and it will build on those initiatives and strengthen the overall global, global system in in surveillance.
And may I just just add to DJ, one of the questions was why?
Why not in in Geneva?
Be rest assured, the core functions of the House are staying in Geneva and the implementation of the the International Health Regulations, the formal verification of disease, the development of risk assessments with our Member States during events.
That will still remain a function of the team here in Geneva.
What we're really speaking about is creating an innovation hub for surveillance, for analytics, for insights, a centre that will accelerate all of the tools that we need for that process.
So in that sense it will be a huge advance on what we're we're doing now.
But again, the day-to-day process of verifying epidemics with our Member States under the IHR, the engagement with our Member States in that formal process, will remain here in Geneva under the leadership of the Director General.
Thanks all so much and also for that clarification.
I think the last question we can take, we'll go to John Saracostas from Francois Cat.
John, please unmute yourself.
Yes.
Can you hear me there?
Please?
Go ahead.
Yes, yes.
Doctor Ryan, you mentioned the issue of concern of equity to accurate data.
Will this be an O?
Will this centre be in Berlin, an open source in other?
Words there won't be problem.
With sharing of the data concerning IP issues etcetera.
And if I may beg to ask an additional question, I'd love your comments on the dramatic reduction in by the UK, OK to the to the polio eradication campaign by 95% this week.
You've got to have your thoughts on that.
Yeah, we've seen issues with with equity emerge again and again and you're absolutely correct.
Access to data and access the tools for generating insights from data is also not evenly distributed.
And I can assure you and on behalf of the Director General, that that's the point of this centre is to democratise that process, bring more partners in, create, facilitate, translate, trans and, and, and transfer the technologies and the capabilities to, to our member States and to private and public institutions capable of, of, of, of of collaboration.
And that so the the the central theme and the central Dr of the the hub will be to do just that.
With regard to the your question regarding the UKI think the United Kingdom obviously has made adjustments to its ODA across the board and and there have been reductions to to many investments in in and that is a constraint obviously that the UK government faces.
We continue to recognise the massive a contribution that the Government of the United Kingdom continues to make to global health security, to saving lives, to immunisation and to all our collective global health goals.
No, no, no other country has done more in this space, but obviously is dealing with with internal policy issues and I would refrain from commenting on that.
Thank you so much for this.
And when did you come to the end of our launch event for the new global Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence to be based in Berlin, Germany?
I'll handover.
Oh, no.
Let me first give a bit of housekeeping.
We'll send the audio files of this right after the meeting, and the transcript of the press briefing will be available tomorrow.
Let me ask Paul Subbile first if there's any final comments you would like to make, and then we'll hand over to the Director General for the final.
Yeah, thank you.
So I'd like to again express my appreciation to Chancellor Merkel and Minister Shahan and look forward to working on this project closely.
And we hope this will be a good addition in improving the epidemic preparedness and response systems that that that we have.
And thank you also to the media who have joined us today and see you in our upcoming pressure on Friday.
Thank you.
Bye bye.