Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening.
First to Uganda, where WHO is continuing to support the government to respond to an outbreak of Ebola disease in five districts.
So far, there are 54 confirmed and 20 probable cases, with 39 deaths, and 14 people have recovered.
More than 660 contacts are currently under active follow-up.
Our primary focus now is to support the Government of Uganda to rapidly control and contain this outbreak, to stop it spreading to neighbouring districts, and neighbouring countries.
This morning I addressed a meeting in Uganda on the outbreak, attended by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health and health ministers from several neighbouring countries.
I welcome the Prime Minister's commitment to controlling the outbreak, and for engaging Uganda's neighbours.
Dr Mike Ryan is on the ground in Uganda and can say more later.
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Now to Haiti, where we are deeply concerned about the outbreak of cholera in the capital Port au Prince and surrounding areas.
According to the Ministry of Public Health and Population, as of last Saturday there were 224 suspected cases of cholera and 16 deaths.
One quarter of suspected cases are among children aged under five years.
On Sunday, the ministry also confirmed a cholera outbreak in the National Penitentiary of Port-au-Prince, with 39 suspected cases and nine deaths.
The situation is evolving rapidly, and it is possible that earlier or additional cases have not been detected.
The surveillance mechanism set up by the Haitian Government, with the support of WHO and other partners, is operating under extremely difficult circumstances.
The affected areas are very insecure, and controlled by gangs, which makes it very difficult to collect samples, and delays laboratory confirmation of cases and deaths.
In addition, fuel shortages are making it harder for health workers to get to work, causing health facilities to close and disrupting access to health services for people who live in some of the most deprived communities.
WHO is working with the Ministry of Health and our partners to coordinate the response, including for surveillance, case management, water and sanitation, vaccination and community engagement.
But to bring this outbreak under control, we need secure access to the affected areas.
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Now to Pakistan.
Last week, I said that many more people than died in the floods could die from disease in the coming weeks and months.
There is now a malaria outbreak in 32 districts, while the incidence of cholera, dengue, measles and diphtheria is also increasing in flood-affected districts.
We expect the situation to continue to deteriorate.
But so far, international support has not been at the scale or speed needed.
Trillions of dollars are being poured into fighting wars around the world.
We continue to ask international donors to invest in saving lives in Pakistan.
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Tomorrow, the Emergency Committee on COVID-19 will hold its regular quarterly meeting, in accordance with the International Health Regulations.
Clearly, we are in a very different situation now to where we were when the committee recommended that I declare a public health emergency of international concern more than 33 months ago.
We have all the tools we need to end the emergency in every country.
But the pandemic is not over, and there is much more work to be done.
WHO will brief the committee on the current situation globally, and present our concerns about the continuing risks to the world's population, with large vaccination gaps, reduced surveillance, low rates of testing and sequencing, and uncertainties about the potential impact of current and future variants.
I look forward to receiving the committee's recommendations.
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On monkeypox, more than 70,000 cases have now been reported to WHO, with 26 deaths.
Globally, cases are continuing to decline, but 21 countries in the past week reported an increase in cases, mostly in the Americas, which accounted for almost 90% of all cases reported last week.
Once again, we caution that a declining outbreak can be the most dangerous outbreak, because it can tempt us to think that the crisis is over, and to let down our guard.
That's not what WHO is doing.
We are continuing to work with countries around the world to increase their testing capacity, and to monitor trends in the outbreak.
We are concerned about reports of cases in Sudan, including in refugee camps near the border with Ethiopia.
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Like COVID-19, monkeypox remains a public health emergency of international concern, and WHO will continue to treat it as such.
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Finally, more than a decade ago, I was invited to join a committee that was setting up a new health conference in Germany, called the World Health Summit.
Since then, the World Health Summit has gone from strength to strength, and is now one of the most important events on the global health calendar.
For the first time this year, WHO is the official co-organiser of the World Health Summit.
Over three days, thousands of leaders from public health, government, civil society, academia, youth, industry and parliaments will gather to discuss the most pressing issues in global health.
We encourage all journalists around the world to follow the discussions from Sunday on Tuesday, at worldhealthsummit.org.
It's now my honour to introduce the President of the World Health Summit, and my friend, Professor Axel Pries.
Axel, thank you so much for joining us today and you have the floor.
[Professor Axel Pries addressed the media]
Thank you again Axel for joining and thank you for your leadership.
Margaret, back to you.
