Director-General's opening remarks at the Hungary Ambassadorial Conference

Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,

Jó reggelt kívánok! Örülök, hogy Budapesten vagyok!

Good morning, I'm very happy to be in Budapest!

Let me begin by thanking His Excellency Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, for the invitation to join you today.

After almost 20 months of virtual meetings, and saying 'I wish I could be with you in person', I am delighted to actually be with you in person.

The last time I was in Budapest was for the Regional Conference of the WHO European Region in September 2017.

Of course, the world has changed dramatically since then.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our world, in many ways.

Around the world, cases and deaths continue to increase in most regions, including in Europe. Many of you see this in the countries in which you live and work.

Increased social mixing and mobility, and the inconsistent use of public health and social measures, in the context of more transmissible variants and inequitable access to vaccines, are driving transmission.

I am pleased to note that cases and deaths from COVID-19 are currently near record lows here in Hungary.

I congratulate the government and people of Hungary for the efforts you have all made together to keep each other safe.

I especially offer my deep thanks and respect to your health workers for their efforts to serve and save.

The greatest danger now is complacency. Many countries around the world have succeeded in driving cases and deaths down, have let down their guard, and seen the virus come roaring back.

That's why WHO continues to advise a comprehensive approach of tailored and consistent public health and social measures, in combination with equitable vaccination.

No country can pretend the pandemic is over. It's not over anywhere until it's over everywhere.

And no country or organization can defeat a global pandemic alone. We are all in this together, and we can only defeat it together.

As Ambassadors, you know better than anyone the value of international cooperation.

Indeed, COVID-19 has demonstrated the vital importance of global solidarity to confront shared public health threats.

It has shown why multilateralism and diplomacy are more important now than ever.

COVID-19 has exposed and exploited the fault lines, divisions, injustices and inequities of our world.

But history teaches us that health is one area in which nations can join hands across ideological divides to solve shared threats.

Perhaps the best example was when the Soviet Union and the USA came together at the height of the Cold War to eradicate smallpox, which had killed an estimated 300 million people during the 20th century.

WHO values Hungary's commitment to multilateralism and global health.

We have many wonderful Hungarian colleagues in WHO, including my Deputy Director-General, Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab.

WHO is especially grateful for the Hungary Helps initiative, and we look forward to working with you to support some of the world's most vulnerable people.

The Memorandum of Understanding we will be signing today builds on this programme, to advance our shared vision to prevent, prepare for, detect and respond rapidly to humanitarian crises of all kinds.

Hungary has also played an important role in the Group of Friends in New York to advocate for improved access to water, sanitation and hygiene in health facilities.

I want to thank Ambassador Zsuzsanna Horváth and her team in New York for working with WHO colleagues on this initiative, as well as Ambassador Margit Szücs in Geneva, with whom we have a very good working relationship.

Inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene in hospitals and clinics affect nearly 2 billion people, especially women and children.

This is a very appropriate issue for Hungary to be advocating for, given that one of your most famous sons is Ignaz Semmelweis, who is often called the father of infection prevention and control.

In 2019 I was honoured to be joined by Dr Pacsay-Tommasich, Hungary's Minister of State for International Affairs, to unveil a statue of Dr Semmelweis, which now sits in the foyer of our Geneva headquarters.

Dr Semmelweis showed that simple hand washing by health workers saves lives.

These ideas were considered an offence to the medical establishment of the time. He was mocked, his mental health deteriorated, and he died at 47 without seeing his ideas accepted.

But history and science vindicated him. Today, we know he was right.

Hand hygiene is fundamental to safe care all over the world, and has become one important way in which people can protect themselves against COVID-19.

Vaccination is another. The development and approval of several safe and effective vaccines in record time has given the world real hope of controlling the pandemic.

And we know that we owe a large debt to the Hungarian scientist Dr Katalin Karikó for her pioneering work that laid the foundation for the mRNA vaccines that are now protecting millions of people around the world.

But the inequitable distribution of vaccines globally has provided fertile ground for COVID-19 to spread.

Countries with the most financial and geopolitical muscle have taken control of the global supply of vaccines, while most of the world's poor have been left behind.

More than 4.8 billion doses of vaccine have been administered globally, but almost 75 percent have been used by just 10 countries.

WHO and our partners are working to redress this global injustice.

I would like to thank the Government of Hungary for its support of this effort by so far donating hundreds of thousands of doses to several countries, and we forward to working with you to expand this support.

Vaccine equity is not just the right thing to do ethically, it's also the right thing to do epidemiologically and economically. It is in every country's own best interests.

The longer vaccine inequity persists, the more opportunity the virus has to spread and evolve into even more dangerous variants, which could evade the vaccines we have, prolonging the pandemic and the economic and social disruption it brings.

WHO's global targets are to support every country to vaccinate at least 10 percent of its population by the end of September, at least 40 percent by the end of this year, and 70 percent of the world's population by the middle of next year.

So far, just over half of countries have vaccinated more than 10 percent of their populations.

Some countries are administering booster doses to people who are already fully vaccinated, while many people in the poorest countries are yet to receive a single dose, including health workers, older people and other vulnerable groups.

That's why I have called for a global moratorium on booster vaccines until at least the end of September, to allow those countries that are furthest behind to catch up.

At the same time, we are working to find new ways of scaling up vaccine production.

For example, we have recently established a technology transfer hub for mRNA vaccines in South Africa, with a letter of intent that sets out the terms of collaboration.

The vaccine crisis illustrates the fundamental weakness at the root of the pandemic: the lack of global solidarity and sharing - sharing of information and data, biological samples, resources, technology and tools.

That's why there is now an emerging global consensus for the idea of an international treaty or other legal instrument, to provide the basis for improved international cooperation to prepare for, detect and respond to epidemics and pandemics.

At the World Health Assembly in May, Member States agreed to discuss this idea at a Special Session of the Assembly in November.

We believe this is an idea whose time has come. A treaty would help to foster the shared trust and shared accountability that is needed to meet shared threats.

Crucially, whatever structure, framework or mechanisms we design together, they must be designed and implemented as a package, not a set of disconnected initiatives, and they must be designed and owned by all Member States, of all sizes and income levels.

===

With the help of vaccines, we will defeat this pandemic, but we will still be left with many of the same vulnerabilities we had before it started.

There is no vaccine for climate change, poverty, hunger, racism, gender equality, unhealthy diets, nor for many of the other social, economic and environmental determinants of health.

We can only meet these challenges with nations working together, supported by top-quality diplomacy.

So I would like to leave you with three specific requests.

First, we seek your support for vaccine equity, and for achieving WHO's global vaccination targets, that means 70% by mid next year. That would help us to control the pandemic.

Reaching these targets will only be possible if countries join forces in a shared effort for a shared vision.

Second, we seek your support for strengthening WHO.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that the world needs an empowered and financially independent WHO at the centre of the global health architecture.

And third, we seek your support for the development and adoption of an international treaty or other legal instrument on pandemic preparedness and response.

We need your diplomatic engagement, not only in Geneva and New York, but in all countries.

We must seize the moment. In the coming months and years, other crises will demand our attention, and distract us from the urgency of taking action now.

Dr Ignaz Semmelweis changed health care because he refused to accept the status quo.

The same is true for us. If the world continues down the same path, it will continue to get the same result, which is a world that is less healthy, less safe and less fair.

Now is the time for new ideas, and for working together in solidarity to build a future that is healthier, safer and fairer for everyone, everywhere.

Thank you so much. Köszönöm.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.