Admin Posted January 20, 2020 Report Share Posted January 20, 2020 The WHO Director General has convened an emergency committee which will meet in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday January 22, 2020 in order to assess whether the 2019-nCoV outbreak meets the criteria of a PHEIC (Pubic Health Emergency of International Concern) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted January 20, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2020 WHO Media advisory International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on novel coronavirus in China GENEVA 20 January 2020---- World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will convene an Emergency Committee on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) under the International Health Regulations (IHR). The Committee will meet on Wednesday, 22 January 2020, in Geneva to ascertain whether the outbreak constitutes a public health emergency of international concern, and what recommendations should be made to manage it.More details to follow.Background links:International Health Regulationshttp://www.who.int/topics/international_health_regulations/en/Q&A on the International Health Regulationshttp://www.who.int/features/qa/emergency-committees/en/Information about the outbreakhttps://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirusMedia contactsTarik JašarevićSpokesperson / Media RelationsMob: +41 793 676 214Tel: +41 22 791 5099E-mail: [email protected]Fadela ChaibMob: +41794755556Tel: + 41227913228Email: [email protected]or[email protected]Best regards,WHO Media Team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted January 21, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2020 WHO Media advisory INTERNATIONAL HEALTH REGULATIONS EMERGENCY COMMITTEE ON NOVEL CORONAVIRUS IN CHINA INVITATION TO A VIRTUAL PRESS CONFERENCE GENEVA 21 January 2020 -- World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will convene an Emergency Committee on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) under the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005). The Committee will meet on Wednesday, 22 January 2020, in Geneva and by teleconference to advise the Director-General on whether the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), and what recommendations should be made to manage it.The Director-General’s decision, following the Committee’s advice, will be made public on WHO’s website and via a press conference (details below). The recommendations will also be made public.WHAT: Virtual Press Conference for journalists and live webcast. An audio file of the press conference will be distributed to journalists shortly after the conference ends. A transcript will follow.HOW: The virtual press conference will be broadcast live on WHO Twitter account @WHO and Facebook pageWHEN: Wednesday 22 January 2020, at 19:00 Geneva time (please note the press conference may be delayed if the meeting does not conclude on time). WHERE: Journalists can dial-in or attend the press conference in person in Salle C (5TH floor). The room will be accessible from 17:00.UN Palais journalists do not need to be accredited. Those outside should request media accreditation by contacting Carla Drysdale at [email protected].If you would like to register in advance, please email scanned press card and official photo ID.WHO: Speakers to be confirmed ahead of the press conference in a separate email.How to access the Virtual Press Conference – 22 January 2020 at 19:00Please try to call in at least 10 minutes before the conference begins in order to be registered correctly. From the list below, please use the number closest to you. If you have problems with a number, try the toll number from a neighbouring country or call Switzerland: +41 44 580 6522, or France +33 1 70709502, or United States +1 855 402 7766. You can also use a VoIP programme such as Skype to call the US toll-free: +1 877 423 0830On connecting, type PIN code: on your telephone keypad and then record your name and media outlet and then press again the # key. Please note, only participants who have clearly identified themselves and their media outlet will be able to ask questions.To ask a question during the question and answer session, registered participants should type 01 on their telephone keypad, this will place you in the queue to ask questions.International access numbers Toll free toll Australia +61284058534 Austria +4319286161 Belgium +3224019516 Brazil +551138788013 Bulgaria +35929358132 Canada 18552409492 +14162164179 China +864008982828 Croatia 08009640 Czech Republic +420225439716 Denmark +4582333179 Estonia +3726868832 Finland +358981710375 France 0805639972 +33170709502 Germany (Frankfurt) 08008050102 (DE) 08008050115 (EN) +4969201744220 (DE) +4969201744210 (EN) Hong Kong +85230773573 Hungary +3612355214 Iceland 8008322 Ireland +35314475418 Israel +97237207677 India +912261875202 Italy +390236006663 Japan +81344556498 Latvia 80004473 Luxemburg +35227302111 Malaysia +60320531808 Mexico +525550913011 Netherlands +31207168020 Norway +4723500271 Poland +48225844205 Portugal +351213164197 Romania +40216550893 Russia +74956469313 Saudi Arabia 8008143583 Serbia 0800190539 Singapore +6564298399 Slovakia +421250112036 Slovenia +38618888475 South Africa +27216724121 South Korea +827076860214 Spain +34914142009 Sweden +46850644386 Switzerland 0800001875 +41445806522 Thailand 0018008524707 Turkey +902123755126 United Kingdom 08002794054 +442030092470 United States +18774230830 Background links:List of members of the Emergency Committee will shortly be posted here:https://www.who.int/ihr/procedures/novel-coronavirus-2019/ec-22012020-members/en/International Health Regulationshttp://www.who.int/topics/international_health_regulations/en/Q&A on the International Health Regulationshttp://www.who.int/features/qa/emergency-committees/en/Q&A on the International Health Regulationshttp://www.who.int/features/qa/emergency-committees/en/https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirusMedia contactsTarik Jašarević: Mob: +41 793 676 214; Tel: +41 22 791 5099; E-mail: [email protected]Fadéla Chaib: Mob: +41794755556 ; Tel: + 41227913228; Email: [email protected]Christian Lindmeier: Mob: +41 79 5006552; Tel: +41 22 791 1948; Email: [email protected]Or [email protected]The virtual press conference will be broadcast live on WHO Twitter account @WHO and Facebook page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niman Posted January 22, 2020 Report Share Posted January 22, 2020 Discussions to resume tomorrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted January 22, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2020 Dear journalists, Please find below from today’s first meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee on the Novel Coronavirus in China the statement by WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the decision to reconvene the Emergency Committee tomorrow, Thursday 23 January 2020. https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statement-on-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus Today’s Emergency Committee meeting was convened by the WHO Director-General today, Wednesday 22 January 2020, at 12:10 at WHO Geneva HQ. Details for tomorrow’s EC meeting and a subsequent Virtual Press Briefing will be distributed in the morning of 23 January. /. IHR Emergency Committee on Novel CoronavirusWHO HQ, Geneva, Switzerland22 January 2020 Good evening to everyone in the room, and to everyone online. I’m really sorry that we’re so late. Thank you all for your patience. As you know, this is an evolving and complex situation. I’d like to thank Dr Houssin for his leadership of the Emergency Committee, and all the members of the committee, the advisors, and those who made presentations earlier today. I was very impressed by the detail and depth of China’s presentation. I also appreciate the cooperation of China’s Minister of Health, who I have spoken with directly during the last few days and weeks. His leadership and the intervention of President Xi and Premier Li have been invaluable, and all the measures they have taken to respond to the outbreak. There was an excellent discussion during the committee today, but it was also clear that to proceed, we need more information. For that reason, I have decided to ask the Emergency Committee to meet again tomorrow to continue their discussion, and the Chair, Dr Houssin, has agreed with that request. The decision about whether or not to declare a public health emergency of international concern is one I take extremely seriously, and one I am only prepared to make with appropriate consideration of all the evidence. Our team in China working with local experts and officials to investigate the outbreak. We will have much more to say tomorrow. Thank you very much, and we would be glad to answer any questions you have. Before that, I would like to hand over to the chair of the Emergency Committee, Dr Houssin, to say a few words about the committee’s deliberations. /.END Please follow here for Background links: List of members of the Emergency Committee:https://www.who.int/ihr/procedures/novel-coronavirus-2019/ec-22012020-members/en/International Health Regulationshttp://www.who.int/topics/international_health_regulations/en/Q&A on the International Health Regulationshttp://www.who.int/features/qa/emergency-committees/en/Coronavirus - Informationhttps://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus Best regardsWHO Media Team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niman Posted January 23, 2020 Report Share Posted January 23, 2020 Share on facebook3 Share on twitter Share on linkedin Share on reddit2 Share on mailto Many travelers wore protective face masks at Shanghai’s high-speed railway station today. Hundreds of millions of people are traveling this week to attend Lunar New Year celebrations. BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES WHO panel puts off decision on whether to sound alarm on rapid spread of new virus By Jon CohenJan. 22, 2020 , 5:45 PM An emergency committee for the World Health Organization (WHO) today had a tie vote on whether to recommend sounding the loudest alarm available in response to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus that has spread from Wuhan, China, throughout that nation and to at least four other countries. At a late evening press conference in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, chair of the committee, and other WHO officials explained that half the committee decided there were still too many unknowns to a declare Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), a designation that can affect travel and the movement of goods. The decision came hours after Wuhan authorities revealed that the city will shut down all transportation from the city of 11 million people on 10 a.m. local time on Thursday. Didier Houssin, an adviser to France’s top health agency and chair of the committee, said half the committee still had questions about whether the patterns of transmission of the disease and its severity warranted a PHEIC. “The committee felt it was a little too unprecise to very clearly state that it was time” to recommend declaring a PHEIC, Houssin said. The committee, which advises WHO’s director-general, will meet again tomorrow to review whether fresh data tip the scales one way or another. Alexandra Phelan, a lawyer at Georgetown University who specializes in global health policy and listened in on the press call, says based on Chinese government and media reports, she thinks the criteria for a PHEIC have been met. But the committee is focusing on a “level of granularity” not in the International Health Regulations, the treaty that allows WHO to declare a PHEIC, Phelan says. “It really came down to their interpretation of what is ‘international spread,’” Phelan says. If all known cases outside China were in people who had traveled from China, some might argue that it does not count as international spread, she says. But the available data may not be clear enough to know whether that’s the case. Phelan, who has lived in China, says the reports of Wuhan restricting transportation are “particularly concerning from a public health perspective” as they could backfire. “You want people to have trust in public health officials if they are sick, and these sorts of heavy-handed decisions make people scared and mistrust authority.” To date, there have been 555 confirmed cases of infection with the virus, temporarily dubbed novel coronavirus 2019, and 17 deaths. About 80% of the cases are in Wuhan, where the first patient sought care on 12 December 2019 and a cluster initially was linked to a large animal market there. Health officials suspect that an infected animal for sale at the market initially transmitted the virus to humans, but human-to-human transmission has since occurred in family members and health care workers who had close contact with confirmed cases. The exact origin of the virus, which is similar to one that causes sudden acute respiratory syndrome and is most closely related to one found in bats, remains a mystery. Animals sold in the market are being tested for the virus, and environmental samples are also being analyzed. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said an official from China’s National Health Commission today gave the committee a “very deep presentation” that underscores how many questions remain. According to the Chinese data, 72% of the cases were more than 40 years old, and 40% had underlying diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease, Ryan said. “If the disease more severely affects older people because of underlying conditions, that doesn’t mean there aren’t infections in other age groups,” he said. “It just means that the visible infections of very sick people are in those older age groups.” Many of the fatal cases had “significant underlying conditions,” Ryan added. No cases have yet been detected of what’s known as a third-generation transmission: a human infected by a human who was infected by a human. If transmissions occur for three generations or more, there’s a much greater threat of a virus rapidly spreading through communities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Many travelers wore protective face masks at Shanghai’s high-speed railway station today. Hundreds of millions of people are traveling this week to attend Lunar New Year celebrations. BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES WHO panel puts off decision on whether to sound alarm on rapid spread of new virus By Jon CohenJan. 22, 2020 , 5:45 PM An emergency committee for the World Health Organization (WHO) today had a tie vote on whether to recommend sounding the loudest alarm available in response to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus that has spread from Wuhan, China, throughout that nation and to at least four other countries. At a late evening press conference in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, chair of the committee, and other WHO officials explained that half the committee decided there were still too many unknowns to a declare Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), a designation that can affect travel and the movement of goods. The decision came hours after Wuhan authorities revealed that the city will shut down all transportation from the city of 11 million people on 10 a.m. local time on Thursday. Didier Houssin, an adviser to France’s top health agency and chair of the committee, said half the committee still had questions about whether the patterns of transmission of the disease and its severity warranted a PHEIC. “The committee felt it was a little too unprecise to very clearly state that it was time” to recommend declaring a PHEIC, Houssin said. The committee, which advises WHO’s director-general, will meet again tomorrow to review whether fresh data tip the scales one way or another. Alexandra Phelan, a lawyer at Georgetown University who specializes in global health policy and listened in on the press call, says based on Chinese government and media reports, she thinks the criteria for a PHEIC have been met. But the committee is focusing on a “level of granularity” not in the International Health Regulations, the treaty that allows WHO to declare a PHEIC, Phelan says. “It really came down to their interpretation of what is ‘international spread,’” Phelan says. If all known cases outside China were in people who had traveled from China, some might argue that it does not count as international spread, she says. But the available data may not be clear enough to know whether that’s the case. Phelan, who has lived in China, says the reports of Wuhan restricting transportation are “particularly concerning from a public health perspective” as they could backfire. “You want people to have trust in public health officials if they are sick, and these sorts of heavy-handed decisions make people scared and mistrust authority.” To date, there have been 555 confirmed cases of infection with the virus, temporarily dubbed novel coronavirus 2019, and 17 deaths. About 80% of the cases are in Wuhan, where the first patient sought care on 12 December 2019 and a cluster initially was linked to a large animal market there. Health officials suspect that an infected animal for sale at the market initially transmitted the virus to humans, but human-to-human transmission has since occurred in family members and health care workers who had close contact with confirmed cases. The exact origin of the virus, which is similar to one that causes sudden acute respiratory syndrome and is most closely related to one found in bats, remains a mystery. Animals sold in the market are being tested for the virus, and environmental samples are also being analyzed. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said an official from China’s National Health Commission today gave the committee a “very deep presentation” that underscores how many questions remain. According to the Chinese data, 72% of the cases were more than 40 years old, and 40% had underlying diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease, Ryan said. “If the disease more severely affects older people because of underlying conditions, that doesn’t mean there aren’t infections in other age groups,” he said. “It just means that the visible infections of very sick people are in those older age groups.” Many of the fatal cases had “significant underlying conditions,” Ryan added. No cases have yet been detected of what’s known as a third-generation transmission: a human infected by a human who was infected by a human. If transmissions occur for three generations or more, there’s a much greater threat of a virus rapidly spreading through communities.
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