UN Geneva Press Briefing: WHO

Very good morning. Thank you for joining us here at the UN Office at Geneva today, Tuesday, the 9th of June. We are following a very important press conference which just took place with the High Commissioner for Refugees on the Global Trends Report. Now we are commencing with our regular press briefing. We have one agenda item, but we have some colleagues who are connected and in the room to answer any queries you might have on other issues, but the issue On the agenda today is the update on the Ebola response in the DRC. We have joining us Tarek of WHO with a guest who he will introduce. So I'll throw over to you right away, Tarek, to introduce your guest.

Thank you very much, Rolando, and good morning, everyone. While we have been briefing you about Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo and the response led by ministry of health, national health authorities, with support of WHO and other partners. So today we want to continue with that, with that update. We have with us Dr. Abdil Mahmoud. He's the director of Health Emergency Alert and Response Operations, joining us from Bunia, so from the epicenter of the outbreak. You have probably seen last evening we sent you the latest disease outbreak news. If you haven't seen, we will send the notes from Dr. Abdi's remarks, and we will add that disease outbreak news. With this, I give the floor to Dr. Abdi for his update.

Thank you, Tarek, and good morning. I'm here to provide with you an update on the outbreak of Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus in DRC, which has been going for now more than 3 weeks. I arrived here in Bunia 15 days ago, and what I witnessed is the incredible work and daily and steady progress despite the enormous challenge. The national leadership of the government, Dr. Mwamba Kazadi, the Director General of National Institute of Public Health, and his team are here in Bunia leading from the front and supporting the provincial health department. During my stay, I was impressed with the dedication and the passion of the frontline workers, healthcare workers caring for suspected and confirmed cases, initially with limited resources. In, in Nizi, I met Dr. Philip Seda, the medical officer in charge of caring for 10 suspected cases, and in addition of caring for the rest of the hospital. That level of dedication in front of the risk is incredible. In addition to the healthcare workers, I would like to recognize the Red Cross volunteers in the field risking their life to ensure the safe and dignified burial in a complex environment where trust is very low. Above all, what I've seen is the leadership of the provisional government under the Governor, Johnny Lubaya Ngashama, who has been here for the last 5 years supporting the Ebola response and making Bunia a vibrant and beautiful city. I didn't expect to— first time I'm here in Bunia, but it's really a good city, and hopefully journalists, more journalists will come and see Apart from Ebola, what else is going on in this beautiful city? And also for facilitating the access to humanitarian. Ituri has been facing a challenging humanitarian setting with over 900,000 internally displaced populations. Governor's leadership approach of building trust with the local community and leaders will be a cornerstone as we work into containing this virus. Now coming to the numbers, as of 8th June, there have been 550 confirmed cases with 101 deaths. The good news, we have 19 community recovered patients, so early identification and treatment saves life, and we can— we are seeing now with more patients being discharged today here in the Bunia, but also in Mongolo. The outbreak remained concentrated in this province where I am now, in Ituri, accounting for 94% of the cases. The increase in the confirmed cases is due to the scale-up of testing. Now we have a decentralized lab in Mongolia, fully functional lab where it's able to test. And then good news is that we are still behind the curve of this outbreak with the remaining challenges with the scale-up going on across all these health zones. We will be able to turn around the tide despite the immense challenge. Uganda has reported 19 confirmed cases and 2 deaths and, and 1 probable. Our Director-General is in Kampala and supporting the local officials and the healthcare workers and patients. In DRC, WHO, along with partners, will continue to support the national authority and health partners to respond Just to give you a few examples of what we have done so far, we are supporting the National Rapid Response Team to perform contact tracing. As of 6th June, there are 5,040 contacts have been identified and followed up in here in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu. WHO has deployed 110 personnel to the 3 provinces—logisticians, epidemiologists, coordination and support across all the pillars. We don't do it alone. We work very closely with our Africa CDC, which we call it the Continental IMST. We have delivered over 40 tons of equipment and medical supply to keep the healthcare workers safe and strengthen the lab and testing capacity. We help the setup of the treatment, but the credit goes to all the health partners who are providing—MSF, ALIMA, IMSP, International Medical Corps, Samaritan's Purse for all coming and supporting the decentralization of the treatment centers. And of course, all this cannot happen without all the partners. There's a long list of the health cluster partners who have been here providing healthcare for these communities and the vulnerable population here, including the 900,000 internally displaced. Last week, Africa CDC and WHO has launched a 6-month joint continental preparedness plan with an ask of $518 million to support the countries both in the response but also in preparedness. This unified one-response approach will be key to rapidly contain and stop this outbreak, and we hope the international community will step up and support this effort. Thank you. Back to you, Tariq.

Thank you very much, Dr. Abdi. Very well noted. If we can get your notes, that would be much appreciated. Maybe, Tarek, you can share those with us. We have a couple of questions for you, starting off with Christiane of the German News Agency. Go ahead.

Thank you, Dr. Abdi. Could you expand a little bit on how the contact tracing is going and what the challenges are that remain or have been overcome?

Thank you. Go ahead, Dr.

We do one-by-one questions. Yep. Oh, okay. The contact tracing is one of the latest pillar of, of, of the response. As of now, we have reached 62% of the contacts, but our target is 90 to 95%. Where we are It is a slow and steady progress, but we have not reached where we want to be. And that comes down to the community trust and working with the community. If there is a key message, it is this outbreak will not succeed or will not ramp up unless we have the communities. It's the community and the community healthcare workers who will identify early the case, refer the case to the treatment centers, and also help with, with the contact tracing. So it's different in some places. We have reached the 90-95%, but overall we are around 60-62%. With the ramp-up of contact tracing and community workers, we hope to achieve that target in the coming weeks.

Thank you so much. Okay, we'll turn online. We have a few questions for you. Sorry, I didn't see you there, Agnès. AFP, French news agency. Go ahead, Agnès.

Yes, hi, thank you. A question to WHO. Today, several Kenyans have been arrested in some protests in Kenya against the Ebola quarantine center that is being built for the U.S. citizens. So I was wondering how WHO is looking at this event, and are you in contact with the authorities to see what could be done and why this center is creating so much problems? And do you think that this could have an impact on the propagation of the epidemic, on the fight against the epidemic? Thank you.

Maybe other— Tarek, you may want to jump in as well. I'm not sure, Dr. Abdi, if you have a comment on that, or Tarek, go to you.

Well, I think Dr.

Abdi outlined what needs to be done, and obviously Kenya and U.S. can work together in the best way they think it's for their respective interests. But what's needed is that— and we issued the recommendations to all the countries, neighboring countries, on how to do the surveillance and make sure that if there are any cases that are being detected quickly, provided medical care, and then that contacts are being identified. But I'll let Dr. Abdi, if he wants to add something.

No, you covered it well that our recommendation remains both for the affected countries in DRC and Uganda and the country in the preparedness. All countries needs to have a diagnostic. Then you start with the community and the community engagement. You cannot have a successful response unless you community. So our recommendations remain the same. We have the neighboring countries, what they need to do in terms of getting readiness, including the treatment centers. And Kenya has proven strong capacity and capability in dealing in preparedness, both for the Ebola, but previously for mpox and that. So we have our country office. We engage with the Ministry of Health. But I think it's the Kenyan leadership working closely, and we have no issues coming— countries coming in solidarity. As I mentioned earlier, The resources required for 580 million is a lot, and we need the US government, the UK, and all the donors to come together supporting DRC and Uganda, but also the other neighboring countries, including Kenya, in preparing their lab diagnostic capacity, in building their treatment centers, both for their citizens but also for the international. Nairobi has one of the highest UN presences, so for us, it's— is a local bilateral collaboration between the Kenyan government and the U.S. And that dialogue and community engagement is the key, as I've said in my previous interventions. You cannot have a successful preparedness or response unless you have the community with you on your side.

Thank you so much. Okay, we'll go online. We have a few questions. Bianca, I noted that your hand was up earlier. I'm not sure if this is quite Is this a question for WHO or is this on another issue?

Yes, Rolando, thanks a lot. Good morning, everyone. I thank Dr. Abdi Mahamud for sharing all the information with us, but I know it's an extremely relevant subject, but as a Brazilian correspondent, I need to take advantage of Tarik in this briefing and ask something related to Brazil.

BARRY BLOOM] Yeah, I think it would be better if we just exhaust the questions on Ebola, but of course another important issue which you will raise, but we'll go back to you afterwards. So on that, I'll go to the next question is John Zaracostas.

John?

Yes, good morning. Thank you, Rolando. Dr. Abdi, I was wondering if you could also bring us up to speed on the number of suspected cases as of June 8th in both DR Congo and also neighboring Uganda. Thank you.

We may have to share with you On the dawn, I don't have the latest data because the data has been cleaned around, so the numbers is backlog. But what I would like to say is the lab has intensified. So far, any suspected will be able to be tested in Tallinn. So the previous suspected were backlog from previous, before the outbreak was declared, but now we don't have any suspected case that comes to the treatment centers will be able to get the result in 24 hours. So maybe the data needs to be updated. There are a lot, I think they just need to be confirmed. So we are getting a lot, a lot. So it's just someone with symptoms, and then the doctors will go and look at the case definition, classified in a suspected, and then they collect sample, and within 24, 24 hours we should be able to get the result. So the major backlog that you used to see suspected, we are no longer facing that pressure because we have a lab here, we have a lab in South Kivu, in North Kivu, and even in more hard-to-reach areas like Mongolo, there's a lab, and there's another lab in plan for Aru. So we will not be talking about that backlog. As they come, they will be either confirmed or discarded.

Okay, well noted. Thank you, Doctor. Next question is from Olivia Reuters.

Hello, thank you very much indeed, Dr. Abdi, and also thoughts with your team obviously working in an extremely difficult environment. I just— you mentioned about testing capacity, and I just actually wanted to just get a few more details. I think what would be super helpful to understand is just exactly what the process looks like now when it comes to testing of cases. How long it takes, who then communicates the result. Yeah, does any kind of, like, kind of forensic detail would be really helpful just to understand how now, because I appreciate testing has evolved a lot since, since the first day of the outbreak. So yeah, just a bit of a detailed explanation of the process would be really great because I know you're saying some stuff has been established now in recent days.

Thanks, Olivier. I mean, the main system works with the surveillance. That's the key. So starting with the community surveillance and the community workers will report an alert. They may be a suspected— and then the healthcare, the team at the health zone. For those ones who are not familiar with DRCs, you have the province, under the province is health zone, or what we call in other countries districts, and then under the district there's area de santé. So the health zone team Together with the professional team, we'll go and investigate the case, collect the samples, and then send them to the lab. So where we are now in Bunia, most of the areas are within that 1-hour drive. So samples will arrive in the lab, data will be entered from the health zone level. We have a system called DHR Straka. It's the same system being used whether in the treatment center or in the lab. Or the surveillance team. So it's one system where you enter the epidemiological investigation, the team doing the treatment are using the same system, and also at the lab. So these are an integrated system, and if there is an immediate required, the clinical treatment can also go. So it's a well-functioning system that's integrated from surveillance to contact tracing to the treatment center and to the lab. So it is end-to-end data system and data sharing. Of course, there are places with limited internet. So that's another challenge. I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture, everything is perfect. There are challenges, there are places that you cannot reach. It takes hours, 7, 8 hours for the sample to reach. But overall, with the lab decentralization, and the ramp-up of the scale-up, we are confident that that aspect of testing and confirmation will be as rapid as possible.

Thank you so much. I think Olivia has a follow-up on that, then over to you, Kristian, afterwards.

Sorry, and yes, this is just a simple question. When we say rapid as possible, is that like within 24 hours, 48 hours, 3 days, just to have a rough sense of realistically what the time time scale is at the moment of getting tested and getting the test result back?

I mean, Eritrea is as big as France, so that's the landscape, that's what we're talking about. So places like here, you can get— if you are in Bunia, you can get your result in 1 or 2 hours. In places that's far, you can get within 24 hours. With the decentralization of the lab, having a lab in a Aru is the farthest from here that can take 7 to 10 hours by road. So by Friday we'll have a lab there. The team will not be— we are talking of hours. And that's the goal. Within the day, someone get admitted to a suspected, get the results so that we don't keep long the suspected or confirmed at the same time. So it's hours and a day. That's The goal, the ideal goal is every treatment center to have the diagnostic capacity and a quick turnaround. But in Bunia and the neighboring area, we are able to achieve that goal of within 2-3 hours, the same day getting the result.

Okay, thank you so much. Another question from a DPA, Christiane.

Yes, Dr. Abdi. Q: Some clarification on the confirmed deaths. Are these people who we knew had Ebola and who died in the last couple of days, or are you also investigating older cases of people who have died who might have had Ebola, which was not diagnosed before they died? In other words, How many deaths are suspected of being Ebola connected? Thank you.

Thank you. The deaths I reported, 101 deaths, are confirmed deaths in DRC. So before the outbreak declaration, we had a number of around 248. I don't have the exact number, but we had a backlog of 250. There's work going on to look retrospectively how many of those fit the case definition of Ebola and how many of them doesn't. So that work is going on, as you can imagine, from different health zones. And our main focus right now is to deal with the current outbreak that's increasing and then dedicate some resources, because when you do a retrospective work, you are taking away from the progressive work that needs to happen to be escalated. So the work is going on and going through the— before the declaration of the outbreak, the suspected death, how many of them are true Ebola with Ebola-like symptoms, and most probably those will be classified as probable because they died before the collection of sample. So that work is going on and it will— may take some time, and we don't want to distract from the current priority of doing contact tracing, engaging with the community, ensuring safe and dignified burial. So top priority for us as a program under the leadership of the government is to support the current work that needs to be scaled up.

Sorry, did you say that you were looking at 250 cases, or did I mishear that? Previous cases where retrospectively you are trying to work out. Did you give a number of how many you are looking at?

I'll get you— if I remember correctly, Tarek maybe remind me, but 258, but I don't have the exact, but it was a suspected death that are now before the outbreak declaration.

Okay, Dr. Al-Awtarikh, if you have, um, more granularity on that, or maybe we can get back to—

Yeah, we'll get back to you. I need to get to what we had before. Please check also the disease outbreak news that we sent yesterday, and also it's always good to check the, the sitrep of the Ministry of Health that is being also published with the latest numbers. But Christian, we may Be back to you on this.

Sounds good. Thank you so much, Tarek. I think on that note, we're done with Ebola. So, Dr. Abdi, thank you so very much for joining us, and thank you for the immensely important work you're doing. Stay safe, and do join us anytime connecting with our journalists here in Geneva. So thank you once again. Okay, so, Tarek, thank you. Tarek, I think there's a question from Bianca, so maybe we can ask Bianca to pose her question concerning Brazil. So back to you, Bianca.

Thanks again. Thanks. Yeah, Tarek, yesterday, I imagine you know that in Brazil, following two suspicious deaths, the health minister suspended the use of Butantan dengue vaccine. This was the world's first single-dose dengue vaccine. So how is the WHO following this situation? Does the WHO support Brazil's decision to suspend vaccination? How concerned is the WHO, and is there any recommendation?

Hi, thanks, Bianca. I have seen the news. I will have to really see with the with colleagues in our regional office, also in the country office, and with our experts. I mean, if you look at our fact sheet on dengue, there is one vaccine that is available for dengue protection, and it's TAK-003. It's produced by Takeda, and it's a 2-dose series. So this is the only available dengue vaccine that is being licensed. So, I really need to get more information on what vaccine has been used there, and I will check with my colleagues. Please send me an email, and we will get from our experts an answer. Thank you.

Okay, noted. Thank you very much, Tariq. Do we have further questions for WHO? No. Well, taking advantage of Tariq being— yes, we do. And yes.

Yes, sorry. It's just a follow-up on Ebola, on a figure that was given, but maybe if you don't have the answer now, you can send us by mail. But Dr. Abdirahman said that 62% of the contacts so far has been identified and traced, followed up. And then he said that 500 5,040 have been found contacts. So the question is, is this 62% just for DRC or also for Uganda? And the same question for the 5,000.

I really have to check. I'm just looking at the, at the, at the, at the Ministry of Health of DRC latest sitrep, uh, and that's, uh where they say that 64.4% taux de suivi des contacts pour les 3 provinces. So that's for DRC. Again, I don't have figures here from Uganda, and I will try to get those.

Okay, thanks. Tarek, anything further for Tarek?

I will share this thing in a That chat. so people can have a quick look at the sitrep from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

If you could also share it beyond the chat. Sorry. Yes, Taha, you have a question for Tarek?

Thank you, Tarek, for giving us this overview. Is this a real disease or Is it made up for African people, Ebola? Thank you.

Hi, Tarek. This is— Thank you so much.

Further questions for Tarek? No? Okay. So, Tarek, thank you, as always, for joining us here. That's it for the— topics, proactive topics, I have just a few announcements to make, and then— then we can call it a wrap. There was a statement that we shared with you rather late last night, attributable to the spokesperson for the Secretary-General, on the situation in the Middle East, and since we have a little time, maybe if you can indulge me, I'll just read out the statement. It's just over a minute. The Secretary-General is deeply alarmed by the renewed escalation in the Middle East. He calls on all concerned parties to immediately stop attacks, exercise maximum restraint, and refrain from any action that could further inflame an already volatile situation. The Secretary-General urges all parties to fully abide by the ceasefires in Lebanon, Iran, and Gaza, and to avoid any steps that could undermine ongoing diplomatic efforts. Secretary-General is also deeply concerned by the decision by Israel to close crossings into Gaza. He reiterates his call for the immediate reopening of all crossings to ensure the rapid, safe, and unhindered passage of humanitarian assistance at scale throughout Gaza. Secretary-General underscores that the exercise of navigational rights and freedoms in accordance with international law must be respected. He further calls on all parties to uphold their obligations under international law and to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians. Secretary-General Guterres reiterates that there is no military solution to the conflicts in the Middle East. The only way forward is through dialogue and negotiations. He therefore urges all concerned parties to work toward diplomatic solutions that advance regional and international peace and security. That's the end of the statement which we shared with you last night. I also wanted to flag a couple of statements that were delivered to the Security Council yesterday by Rosemary DiCarlo and also by the Acting ASG of OCHA concerning Ukraine. Ms. DiCarlo notes how the UN has— well, She's warned that the war in Ukraine has entered an even more dangerous and deadly phase, with civilian casualties continuing to rise and recent large-scale attacks causing extensive loss of life and damage to civilian infrastructure. And for their part, the Acting ASG of OCHA notes how the humanitarian situation in Ukraine is deteriorating as intensified attacks attacks continue to kill and injure civilians, damage critical infrastructure, and hinder humanitarian operations. And as we always do, the UN calls on all parties to protect civilians and aid workers, to ensure humanitarian access, and provide resources needed to assist the 10.8 million people requiring humanitarian support in Ukraine. So two statements that were shared. That were delivered to the Security Council yesterday on the situation of Ukraine. Another statement that we shared with you is an SG statement at an annual memorial service— at the annual memorial service honoring staff members who lost their lives in the line of duty. He notes that— paid tribute specifically to the 136 UN personnel who lost their lives in the line of duty last year. And we are deeply grateful to be joined by, well, many of the people, many of the family members who were there. He notes how there were, of these 136, 97 were civilian personnel and 39 uniformed peacekeepers. Do take a look at the statement. Among these killed last year, 80 were working for UNRWA alone, and we know that the death toll for our colleagues from UNRWA, is much higher, but this was just 2025. Shocking statistics which were uttered in this important statement of the SG yesterday. Just to give you a heads up, Secretary-General later today will deliver remarks to the 19th session of the Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That's today at 4:00 PM Geneva time, 10:00 AM New York. We'll share those share those remarks with you as soon as they're delivered. Meetings taking place here, the Conference on Disarmament is holding an informal plenary meeting today on the improved and effective functioning of the conference. There are no human rights treaty bodies— well, I'm sorry, there is a Committee on the Rights of Migrant Workers meeting in private. At the end of the week, they will actually submit their concluding observations. A number of appointments that we shared with you yesterday as well, all from the UNHCR, and you just heard from the head of UNHCR moments ago. We have appointments of the Deputy High Commissioner, the Assistant High Commissioner for Operations, and the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, all three very high-level appointments at the UN Refugee Agency, as appointed by by the Secretary General. So those were shared with you yesterday. And I'm almost done here. Just to flag again, I think Alessandra mentioned to you already last— this past Friday that this coming Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the 15th through the 17th of June, we have a meeting hosted by our colleagues at the Disarmament Affairs, Informal Exchanges on Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain. Taking place at Tempus. There, the informal exchanges, as noted, are private, but there are lots of interesting side events, experts available at your disposable— at your disposal should you want to interview them. So take a look at that media advisory we shared with you. Nearly done here. Press conference is tomorrow. As you will have seen, Pascal shared with you a media advisory as did we, for the traditional pre-Human Rights Council press briefing with the President of the Human Rights Council. The Ambassador of Indonesia, Ambassador Suryo Dipuro, will hold a press briefing tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. in his office in the A Building. Now, it was at 10:30, now it's at 9:00 a.m., so just make sure mark your calendars. And this is a significant session. As you might know, it's the 20th anniversary. It was 2006 in June when the Human Rights Council first met, so it's the 20th anniversary of that important occasion. So again, the briefing is in his office tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., and if you have questions, do contact Pascal Sim. Lastly, tomorrow is the International Day for Dialogue Among among civilizations. We just shared with you a message from the Secretary-General on this important occasion, through which he notes how we are living through a period of turbulence and transformations, with conflicts raging, inequalities widening, and evolving technologies from AI to clean energy, which present us with the critical choices about the future we want to create. So he says the path forward is dialogue. In this important message that we shared with you in multiple languages a short while ago. So I think that's it from me. If you have any questions— nope. Okay, on that note, wish you a good afternoon. See you here on Friday.