TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS BY THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL AT WHO'S STRATEGIC HEALTH OPERATIONS CENTRE

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today visited the World Health Organization's Strategic Health Operations Centre in Geneva. Following is a transcript of the remarks he made at the end of his visit, and the remarks by WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook.

The Secretary-General:

Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you were impressed by the discussions we had earlier on, as I am, and to see how professionally and effectively the World Health Organization under the leadership of Dr. Lee is tracking these diseases and of course we have now raised awareness about the avian flu and its potential to destabilize societies. It is not just a health problem, it's an issue that can affect entire social fabric, destabilize the livelihood of farmers, affect business cycles, affect travel and overwhelm health facilities. So preparedness is the key and we would want to see world leaders take keen interest and show leadership in leading the preparedness efforts. As you heard earlier on, the only way to prevent the catastrophe is to prepare and to have early warning systems and for governments to work together. So I would appeal to leaders around the world to come together, to pool their efforts, to make the resources available and to assist those countries which do not have capacity to set up their own systems because we are in this together. With travel these days, we saw how SARS very quickly got to North America in no time at all. So we cannot say: I'm okay, I'm prepared, I'm protected and the others are each one for himself. We are in this together and that is the message I think the world should get and I think I wanted to applaud Dr. Lee’s efforts and the leadership he’s shown in this area, and the world must listen.

Director-General of WHO:

Well, for us, it is an honour but also it is a timely visit of the Secretary-General and it is a great encouragement for all of us who are working day and night for control of avian flu and polio and other diseases around the world. Thank you for your visit to the Centre.

The Secretary-General:

One thing I forgot to say, he's also been very good, he's given me one of his good officers, David Nabarro, to work as my Influenza Coordinator with me in New York as we try to energize governments to take effective action on this issue.

Director-General of WHO:

We all thank the Secretary-General for his leadership because we are the UN system, we are the big family, and he is the head of our whole family. I am very grateful for your visit.

The Secretary-General:

I have grey hairs to show for it. Thank you very much.

Question:

Sir, are you convinced that enough countries are doing enough if only 40 countries have preparedness plans?

The Secretary-General:

No, there is much more to be done. And the question is why aren't other countries doing it? Some are blatantly, obviously complacent, others do not have the capacity and need help to be able to do it. And we need to identify those countries and offer them the help to be able to bring their preparedness to the level that we think it should be.

Question:

When you appeal to world leaders, what exactly are you going to appeal for, more donations, more work on vaccines?

The Secretary-General:

I think within their own communities, they should lead to ensure that they are getting their societies prepared, that they are taking measures to deal with the epidemic if it were to break out, and to understand that the only remedy, the only way to deal with it is to be prepared, otherwise you will be surprised and there will be many, many deaths. There is also the question of access to vaccination and medication, where some countries in the developing countries may not be able to afford it. And here, again, we need to be able to organize ourselves in such a way that we will be able to help them either by raising funds from (the) donor community, encouraging pharmaceutical companies and others to be helpful, making sure that we do not allow intellectual property to get into the way of access of the poor to medication, allowing for emergency production of vaccine in the developing countries, and I wouldn't want to hear the kind of debate we got into when it came to the HIV anti-retrovirals. So we should be clear that in this situation, we will take the measures to make sure poor and rich have access to the medication and the vaccine required. And the decision should be taken ahead of time so that we don't have to quibble about it when the critical and the crisis moment arrive.

Thank you very much.