REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the GAVI Alliance, the World Meteorological Organization and the World Trade Organization.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Conference on Disarmament started the first part of its 2010 session this week, and the next public plenary would be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 26 January. As journalists knew from the press release, the Conference had not adopted its agenda at its first plenary. The Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, Dipu Moni, would address the Conference on Wednesday, 27 January. Bangladesh was the current President of the Conference and would hold this position until 12 February.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was today concluding the first week of its forty-fifth session, Ms. Momal-Vanian said. This week, the Committee had considered the reports of Uzbekistan and Ukraine and it was reviewing the report of Malawi today. Next week, the Committee would consider the reports of the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, Egypt and Botswana. The report of Panama would be considered during the third and last week of the Committee’s session, which would conclude its work on 5 February after issuing its concluding observations and recommendations on the country reports which it had reviewed.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child considered the reports of Tajikistan, Ecuador, Israel, El Salvador and Norway this week, and was reviewing the last report of the session today, that of Liechtenstein. The Committee would conclude its work on Friday, 29 January after issuing its concluding observations and recommendations on the country reports which it had considered during the session.

Secretary-General’s Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would take part in next week’s international conference aimed at helping Afghanistan to chart its way forward in the wake of last year’s presidential elections and build a more secure and prosperous country. Mr. Ban would be co-hosting the so-called London Conference, which would be held in the British capital on 28 January, with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The gathering aimed to establish a strong compact between Mr. Karzai, his Government and his people, and to also set up a strong partnership between the Afghan people and the international community. After the London conference, Mr. Ban was then scheduled to visit Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to attend the summit of the African Union. While in Addis Ababa, the UN chief was also slated to hold a series of bilateral meetings with heads of State and government at the summit.

Asked whether or not the Secretary-General would be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Secretary-General had been planning to attend, but this had been cancelled so he could concentrate on coordinating the relief operation for Haiti. She believed the United Nations Development Programme Administrator, Helen Clark, would be attending the Forum.

Haiti

Ms. Momal-Vanian said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with United Nations Special Envoy Bill Clinton yesterday to discuss the situation in Haiti. Following the meeting, the Secretary-General said the United Nations had three priorities: first, continuing to provide humanitarian assistance with effective mechanisms to deliver all the relief items to the people who need it; second, to provide security and stability for people; and third, the reconstruction of the Haitian economy. He said he was going to dispatch Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes and UN Development Programme Administrator Helen Clark for the ministerial meeting which would be held in Montreal, in Canada, next Monday, 25 January.

According to the latest figures on UN casualties in Haiti, the confirmed number of deceased for UN peacekeeping and civilian staff was now 61. Fewer than 180 personnel remained unaccounted for, Ms. Momal-Vanian said.

The Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Jacques Diouf had urged local efforts and efforts by the international community to provide urgent agricultural aid to Haitian farmers before the sowing season in March. This would be very important for the planting of cereals in Haiti.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said aid was getting through to more and more locations. The aid was being distributed in Port-au-Prince, and also in affected regions outside of Port-au-Prince. The port of Port-au-Prince was functional again. The airport was receiving 150 planes daily and another 1,000 planes were waiting to get in. There was still a lot to do, but they were moving in the right direction. The road from the Dominican Republic remained the best option for the majority of incoming cargo. There were more details in the briefing notes. The priority of the Government of Haiti was to help the people and to support them in returning back to their original provinces and to distribute aid to those in Port-au-Prince. Regarding medical supplies, this issue was of course still a priority, but the situation was really improving. The Government was increasingly in charge. In response to questions, Ms. Byrs said they had heard a lot of criticism about coordination, but she could only repeat that coordination was picking up now. It was a huge process. It might seem slow to some people, but lessons had been learned and they were trying to provide the most efficient and timely response. The operation was improving every day.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said WFP started bringing the fuel in earlier this week. The first 10,000 gallons came in last Tuesday, yesterday 9,000 gallons were brought, today they were expecting 12,000 gallons. The Executive Director of WFP, Josette Sheeran, arrived in Port-au-Prince yesterday and she would be there until Saturday. She would give a press briefing later today in Port-au-Prince. This was an evolving situation. In the week since the earthquake struck, WFP had delivered more than 1.4 million rations, each ration was the equivalent of three meals a day, to about 250,000 persons. Some of the people were receiving seven day rations, others had received five day rations. In some locations, where people were able to cook, they had been providing dry rations of rice, beans, vegetable oil and salt. One of the main priorities in terms of targeting had been hospitals and orphanages. In coming days, WFP was aiming to deliver five day rations to 100,000 people a day. Again this was an evolving situation. Aftershocks were continuing. There were two significant tremors on Wednesday and on Thursday, one which further damaged WFP warehouses which had now become unusable. Food was coming in on a daily basis from outside.

Paul Garwood of the World Health Organization said the latest number of health partners working within the health cluster coordinated by WHO was 55 different health partners. This mechanism for health was working closely with the Government of Haiti, which had set up its own commission to respond to the emergency’s health needs. There were at least 18 hospitals and other health facilities providing medical care in Port-au-Prince, among them nine field hospitals. One of the great needs now was more nursing support. Focus must also be on continuing care for people who had suffered from chronic diseases before the earthquake, and rehabilitating health services that could provide care for chronic disease sufferers.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said more than 100,000 persons were receiving essential relief items each day from IOM and its partners in the capital Port-au-Prince and other areas that sustained extensive damage from last week's devastating earthquake. IOM, UN agencies, NGOs and the private sector were distributing essential non food items such as plastic sheeting and jerry cans to the displaced. After most acute needs are met, distributions would include building materials such as tarpaulins, cement, wood, tools, and ropes to help people fix their homes or build a more secure structure. As of today, 508 makeshift settlements had been identified in the greater Port au Prince area. The 314 settlements assessed so far by IOM, the Government of Haiti and partners, indicated a population of 472,000 people. The Government of Haiti was planning to establish six sites in greater Port-au-Prince, each able to accommodate a few thousand individuals. Earthquake victims would be relocated to these sites pending reconstruction efforts.

Veronique Taveau of the UN Children’s Fund said next week, an emergency campaign to vaccinate children against measles, polio and tetanus would be held. Some 360,000 children between the ages of one and five years were targeted. UNICEF was in charge of water and sanitation, critical issues in this crisis. UNICEF was distributing as much water as it had, however UNICEF had a lot of trouble transporting the water around the capital. It planned to open another 30 water distribution points in coming weeks. The issue of protection for children remained a critical issue for UNICEF. There were a large number of unaccompanied children. UNICEF was seeking to identify them, feed them and take care for them. UNICEF had set up tents to welcome children and care for them.

Jean Claude Legrand of the UN Children’s Fund said UNICEF was creating centres to welcome unaccompanied children and it was working with the Haitian Government, the Red Cross and Save the Children. Procedures had been put in place to allow for the identification of families and to ensure that children were reunited with family members and not with predators. A surveillance mechanism had also been set up. Unfortunately, a number of cases of children who disappeared from hospitals for example had already been registered. There was evidence that there were networks targeting children. Most of the countries who were receiving adopted Haitian children were signatories of the Hague Convention and it was imperative to remind them of their obligations. In addition to the unaccompanied children problem, there were thousands of young girls who worked as domestic workers in homes, and measures were being taken to ensure their protection.

Anne Wittenberg of the United Nations Population Fund said at present there were about 63,000 pregnant women in Port-au-Prince alone, and 7,000 of them would give birth in the next month. Nearly 10,000 would probably need medical care because of complications and so would the new born babies. Before the earthquake, Haiti was already the most dangerous place to be a pregnant woman in the western hemisphere. One in 47 women risked dying in childbirth. Today things were obviously worse. One of UNFPA’s priorities was ensuring that women had access to professional medical care so that they could deliver safely. UNFPA had already delivered 18 safe delivery and reproductive health kits to its partners, and it would soon deliver 20,000 dignity kits containing items such as sanitary napkins, diapers, antibacterial soap and other hygiene and cleaning supplies. Another UNFPA priority was to prevent gender based violence from spreading in crisis situations.

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said a joint OHCHR-UNHCR protection team was scheduled to arrive in Port-au-Prince today from the Dominican Republic. The five-member team was led by OHCHR’s former director of field operations, and included two other OHCHR staff and two UNHCR staff. It was the first time these two UN organizations had fielded a joint protection team of this type during a crisis. The purpose of this team was to support the remaining members of the MIINUSTAH human rights team which was already in place in Haiti. Two staff had been lost during the crisis. OHCHR would take the lead in the protection cluster. There were a number of other agencies in the protection cluster including UNICEF and UNFPA with their expertise in child protection and sexual and gender based violence. There had been, and continued to be, sizeable population movements into the countryside, and they were concerned that a range of protection issues could emerge among the displaced people living outside the main area where relief operations were taking place. So one important focus of the protection team, along with the offices of the Human Rights Section in the provinces, would be to keep an eye on developments in the rest of the country. UNHCR’s expertise would, of course, be particularly important when dealing with issues relating to displaced people. Other specific problems which could easily arise involved groups with special protection needs. Both UNICEF and the Committee on the Rights of the Child had already flagged the main issues involving children, and in particular separated children. But other groups, such as single mothers, the elderly, and disabled people and the wounded may also need special attention. Enslavement of children and trafficking were also existing problems, and could easily emerge as serious issues over the coming weeks and months. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Matthew Cochrane of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said a fact sheet was available with a lot of statistics. This was now the largest ever deployment of emergency response units in the history of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Nineteen Emergency Response Units had been deployed, which was more than the 17 in total that were sent following the tsunami. In terms of food, the American Red Cross was working with the World Food Programme, and three million pre-packaged meals would be delivered in the coming weeks. The Federation had reached almost 2,000 households in the last two days, on top of the 3,500 households that they had reached using pre-positioned materials. The Federation’s priority was families who had lost their houses, especially female-headed households and the disabled, the elderly and otherwise disadvantaged households. The Federation was using a registration system.

World Health Organization and H1N1 Review

Gregory Hartl of the World Health Organization said the H1N1 epidemiological update would be posted on the WHO website shortly. It confirmed 14,000 deaths in laboratories. That was a significant amount already. When the final estimates were done for influenza mortality, that figure would probably be significantly higher. Today’s bulletin would also note that any pandemic did not affect countries at the same time and with the same force. Although the H1N1 focus and activity was decreasing in Europe, there was a lot of H1N1 activity in other parts of the world, especially in North Africa and South Asia. In general, around the world, the H1N1 pandemic was continuing and would continue this year.

Next week, Mr. Hartl said WHO would be publishing two other pieces of information, a statement on conflict of interests and an update on where WHO was with vaccine distribution.

In response to a question on whether this statement on conflict of interests would apply to members of the SAGE Committee, especially the Finnish independent expert who forgot to disclose that he had been a recipient of over $ 10 million from GSK but WHO was retaining him as an expert, and whether WHO had been asked to provide information to the European Council parliament investigation on the SAGE Committee, Mr. Hartl said the institute and not the expert had received the money for a study unrelated to H1N1 and before he joined the Committee. The SAGE Committee dealt with conflict of interests openly and transparently and it had already considered this case. A WHO delegation would go to the Council of Europe hearing on 26 January. This would be an open hearing and it would be webcast. In terms of the review process, it was a work in progress, and the Director-General of WHO said she would take suggestions as to members from various rosters.

In response to another question, Mr. Hartl said that if they looked at what was going on in April and May 2009, and they looked at the WHO statements, they were very consistent, sober and balanced in the assessments. WHO always based its assessments on the best scientific evidence available. Looking back at the statements, WHO consistently said that the overwhelming majority of the expression of the disease caused by H1N1 was mild, and that there were punctual effects on certain parts of health systems which caused the overall effect of the pandemic to be moderate. They noted that H1N1 caused severed illness and death in age groups which normally were not affected by influenza. In line with all of this, and the geographic spread of the virus, which spread to more than 74 countries and territories from April to June, that they were dealing with a pandemic, there was no doubt about that. At the Executive Board discussion on H1N1 on Monday, there was unanimous support by the Board members to WHO in terms of how it communicated and how it supported Member States over the past nine months.

GAVI Alliance

Jeffrey Rowland of the GAVI Alliance said 2010 represented the tenth anniversary of the GAVI Alliance. It was launched in 2000 by the Melina and Bill Gates Foundation and now included 17 other Government donors. It was a partnership between WHO, UNICEF, World Bank, the Gates Foundation and a number of other institutes. Their goal was to ramp up the introduction of underused and new vaccines and to strengthen health systems in developing countries. The Alliance would use this anniversary to take a look at the successes it had achieved in the past decade, and to focus on what they needed to improve on and the challenges ahead. There was a guide at the back of the room which talked about GAVI’s work, its results and the road ahead.

Next week, at the World Economic Forum, on 29 January, the GAVI Alliance would hold a public session entitled “Replicating the GAVI Success Story”. On the same day, prior to the panel meeting, there would be a press conference with Bill and Melinda Gates, the CEO of the GAVI Alliance and the Prime Minister of Norway.

John Walker from a partner organization of the GAVI Alliance, speaking about a study to be released in the New England Journal of Medicine on 28 January on rotavirus, which caused severe diarrhea in very young children and in poor countries could be considered a death sentence, said there were now vaccines available that were being used in North America, South America and Europe, and this was causing dramatic reductions in this disease. It was now the time to make these vaccines available to poor children in Africa and Asia. This would require both political will from the countries, and a commitment from donors to make sure that the vaccines were paid for and delivered.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said a press release had been issued this morning on the anti-homosexuality law in Uganda. The UN Special Rapporteur on health, Anand Grover, warned Friday that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill being considered by the Ugandan Parliament is “not only a violation of the fundamental human rights of Ugandans, but will also undermine efforts to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.”

Other

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said the Executive Board of the WHO would be concluding its work tomorrow. This morning, the Board was discussing administrative matters, and this afternoon, it would discuss strategies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.

Gaelle Sevenier of the World Meteorological Organization said according to a recent review and evaluation conducted by a panel of experts in charge of Global Weather and Climate extremes within the WMO Commission for climatology, the record of non-tornadic wind gust registered to date was 408 km/h during Tropical cyclone Olivia on 10 April 1996 at Barrow Island, Australia. Available was a media note with more details. Also available was a fact sheet on questions and answers on tropical cyclones which journalists could find useful.

Janaina Borges of the World Trade Organization said next week, WTO would hold a Trade Policy Review for Malaysia, and there would be a meeting for the accession of Yemen. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy on 25 January would meet with the Prime Minister of Viet Nam, and on 26 January with the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh. From 27 to 30 January, Mr. Lamy would be in Davos, where he was scheduled to meet with a number of Government officials. The list was available in the notes in the press room.