UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : UN Geneva Press Briefing

Very good morning and thank you for joining us here at the UN office at Geneva for this press briefing today, the 8th of May, we have two agenda items for you.

I have a few announcements myself.

We'll start off right away with our colleague who's joining us from Beirut, Moaz Doraid, who is the UN Women Regional Director for Arab States, joining us again from Beirut, who is going to speak to the situation of women and girls in Lebanon.

Afterwards, we will hear from a colleague from Rome, from the World Food Programme done a situation in Somalia.

But let's go right away to to Moise over to you.

[Other language spoken]

I'm speaking to you from Lebanon today, where I have witnessed the impact of the ongoing killing and displacement of women and girls under a fragile ceasefire.

These are violations of the most basic rights and protections afforded to civilians under international law.

Despite A ceasefire agreement taking effect on 17 April, Since then 25 women have been reported killed and 109 reported injured over the past three weeks.

This highlights the continued danger women and girls face as the attempt to return to their homes in southern Lebanon under the perceived safety of the ceasefire.

Many of the women I have met this week have told me that their homes in villages South of the Litani River have been destroyed.

One woman described her village as completely unrecognisable because of the destruction it has suffered.

Continuing Israeli airstrikes, evacuation orders, bans to return to certain areas, and movement restrictions mean most displaced people still cannot go back to their homes, with more than an estimated half a million women and girls remaining displaced.

From my personal perspective, after listening to scores of displaced people, I'm struck by how unlike past wars and conflicts that Lebanon has suffered over the past decades, this current conflict has eroded hope among many as homes and lands in southern Lebanon have been destroyed.

However, along the erosion of hope is determination among the displaced to do their utmost to return to their towns and to rebuild.

Humanity and the international community should stand by these women and girls, men and boys, to bring back the hope.

The availability of food is decreasing.

One woman described to my colleague that she has been forced to forage for wild herbs to feed her family.

And based on the latest IPC projection, UN Women estimates that around an additional 144,000 women and girls are expected to face crisis level hunger or worse in the coming months, bringing the total to approximately 639,000.

Under such dire conditions, I have also witnessed the incredible resilience in the response of women and women's organisations who are delivering humanitarian assistance, supporting livelihoods and enhancing so Seattle cohesion across Lebanon.

Since the 2nd of March, UN Women has directly supported more than 15,000 women and girls, with REACH extending to more than 70,000 people across communities.

We are also supporting 534 women leaders to help communities navigate the crisis, connect people to assistance, identify urgent needs, reduce tensions, and ensure that women's voices are heard in local response and in recovery efforts.

The ceasefire must be fully upheld and transitioned to comprehensive peace in line with international humanitarian law and international law, as well as with women peace and security commitments, ensuring women's full, equal and meaningful participation in peace building and in recovery efforts.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, Mr Deride.

And as you say, hope is what we can strive for.

Indeed in this situation.

I should take this opportunity to remind you colleagues that the Secretary General has repeatedly expressed his deep concern by the ongoing tensions in the region is a whole, but of course in Lebanon, where, as you just heard, despite the ceasefire, the situation remains very volatile.

He urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint and avoid further escalation and of course, to fully respect international humanitarian law and the protection of civilians.

I also take this opportunity to point you to the ORCHA update which you received yesterday, which goes into some details on what the humanitarian community is doing in in the country.

So thank you very much again, Mr Dryd, we'll turn to you colleagues for questions.

We have one for you from AFP.

Over to you, Nina.

Yes, hi, thank you very much for the briefing.

I wanted to ask you about the the women and girls who are expected to face crisis level hunger that you mentioned the number there for starters, how, how does that compare to before the the war And also what impact is there when women and girls face this compared to do you have?

Is there a number overall number for the entire population?

And why is it perhaps more concerning when when women are facing this level of of hunger?

What are the knock on effects of that?

If you could explain?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

Should I answer now or?

Yes, indeed, if you could thank.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, indeed.

Before the current escalation on the 2nd of March, food security across Lebanon and particularly in Southern Lebanon had improved, relying on local production and also on continuing support.

However, with the escalation on the 2nd of March, the needs have multiplied as about 1.2 million Lebanese people have been displaced from their homes and from their lands in the South.

The UN system and the international community has doubled their efforts to provide food assistance along with assistance across essential necessities and and services.

However, unlike the previous conflict in 2024, nowadays the UN system faces greater financial constraints, funding constraints and is scoping with that.

The food insecurity for the displaced population in Lebanon is in terms of numbers effects about the double, double the number that I mentioned, about 1.2 million people who are the displaced and of course UN system including UN women is supporting local organisations.

In our case, for example, a couple of days ago I visited in Sidon in South Lebanon our work with the movement Sussian, which is a non governmental organisation providing hot meals to people displaced in Sidon by employing women not only to prepare such means, but also to train and enhance their capacity for hospitality services and for preparing catering according to professional standards.

So we are both in the response, we are combining, providing direct assistance along with as much as possible, building a capacity which not only provides new skills but also supports these women and communities to bring back worldwide activities in a dignified manner.

Thank you very much, Sir.

[Other language spoken]

So why, why is it especially concerning when women and girls are are facing hunger?

Why highlight those numbers since it's obviously half of the population who are are facing crisis level hunger?

[Other language spoken]

And excuse me for not addressing that part for a variety of reasons.

Where the impact of the conflict on women and girls is differentiated from the rest of the population.

Because there there is an increase in women headed households, often women, it is harder to reach women with the food assistance as well as humanitarian assistance, which is a key element of UN women's work to ensure that gender gender aspects are mainstreamed across the humanitarian response.

So these particular challenges pertaining to women requires a differentiated response also and and engendered response.

And, and also women also have the agency in many dimensions to respond in in meaningful and effective ways, like the the activity that I mentioned with respect to a kitchen where women are employed to provide hot meals to displaced people inside.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much for that.

We have a question now from Reuters.

Olivia, thank you very much.

I just wanted to check the figures.

UN Women is estimating that around 144,000 women and girls are expected to face crisis level hunger or worse in the coming months, right?

Is that based on the IPC report or is this separate kind of passing out by UN women?

Just trying to work out that was part of the, the, the report released a week ago.

And if that figure is, is, is new And just just a question as well on, you know, women being particularly hard to to reach.

I'm just wondering alongside that, if you're facing still kind of ongoing issues in terms of getting trucks etcetera down to the South.

I know you know, high level of destruction to infrastructure roads, one of the key bridges has seen targeting, although I believe that is now fixed.

But yeah, perhaps this is a kind of a note as well just on the logistics that you're maybe facing the challenges are facing to actually get stuff moving down to those hard to reach areas in the South.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, with respect to your first question, as I recall, indeed that figure is based on the recent IPC report.

But my colleagues can confirm that you within the next few hours concerning your question regarding the access, access through trucks and the logistics dimensions.

For that, I would rather defer to my colleagues in the World Food Programme who are leading the UN system with respect to logistics and transportation.

Thank you very much, Sir.

And we do have WFP on the line.

I'm not sure if Mr Hollingworth can address that point, but indeed this is something that we will be looking out for.

OK, let's see if there are further questions.

I don't know if you wanted to add anything.

No, from you and women.

Any further questions in the room or online for that matter?

[Other language spoken]

So on this note then I thank you very much, Mr Deride, for joining us from Beirut.

Stay safe and thank you very much for the important work you're doing there.

And please, of course, feel free to join us at any point in time to give us an update on the situation there, which will hopefully be calmer soon.

[Other language spoken]

Now, as mentioned, we do have a colleague from WFP that is joining us from Rome to shift gears to the situation in Somalia.

It's Matthew Hollingworth, who's joining us from WFP's Assistant Executive Assistant Executive Director for Programme Operations.

Over to you, Matthew.

[Other language spoken]

So yes, indeed, as I've, as has been mentioned today, I want to draw attention to a crisis that is unfortunately yet again accelerating in Somalia and doing so with alarming speed.

I returned just this morning from a week in Somalia and across the country.

During that week, I saw families that are now facing the cumulative effects of repeated extreme weather shocks, conflict, economic pressure, all that are pushing hunger to dangerous levels.

Somalia has endured now multiple failed rainy seasons, 3 consecutively, which has devastated crops, it's wiped out livestock, it's eroding livelihoods and it's impacting millions of people across the the country.

But in particular in Puntland, I saw water resources that have completely dried up.

We see everywhere markets that are strained and for many communities, recovery from previous crises has simply not been possible yet.

And as a result, now 6 million people, almost one in three Somalis, are facing acute hunger.

And among that number, 2 million are already in emergency conditions.

IPC phase four, one step from famine.

1.9 million children are acutely malnourished and hundreds of thousands of them are at risk of the most severe form of malnourishment.

So this isn't a distant warning.

This is a crisis that is unfolding right now and it's deepening quickly.

I spoke to families that have been forced to leave everything behind them in search of food, in search of water, pasture land for their animals and indeed, assistance.

And at the same time, conflict and insecurity continues to limit access to these people, IE the most vulnerable, and further undermine their livelihoods.

And that's access for aid, but that's also access to trade and commercial goods.

Just yesterday in Mogadishu, I met a family that had only arrived a week earlier from the South of the country, 1 amongst thousands fleeing into the city.

And even as some rain begins in Somalia, and that indeed will bring hope, it's not yet bringing any real improvement for people who've lost everything already.

And now Somalia's crisis is obviously being exacerbated by global shocks far beyond its borders.

I mean, the fallout from the crisis in the Middle East is driving up food prices by 70% in some areas, and and fuel prices have gone up by 150%.

That means that supply routes have been disrupted, making it more difficult and more expensive to deliver aid inside the country.

It's all converging on communities that have already exhausted in many ways their their ability to cope.

But there's another defining factor driving this crisis, and sadly, that's a severe lack of funding right now.

WFP, our partners, other UN organisations having are having to make really, really impossible choices in Somalia.

This has already led to a dramatic reduction in assistance across the board and the number of people reached is dropping from more than two million that we were serving last year to just a fraction of that number.

Today I went to a health centre in Puntland, about an hour's drive from Galloway town, and there I met mum mothers with their children who've arrived in search of help, in some cases literally walking hundreds of kilometres from communities where the livelihoods have been entirely wiped out, but arriving to find that organisations that they could once count on cannot support them.

One of those mothers told me that she actually had arrived and had received two months of treatment for her three-year old son, who was facing malnourishment but had just been told that very day.

That there was nothing more we could offer for the child to recover beyond this month's help.

And she was trying to work out well what on earth would she do with her child and other children next month.

And this was one of the lucky areas because this was a healthcare centre that was still open.

In that same catchment area.

There had been 12 health centres last year running, now there's only three and preventive action in those in those centres has stopped.

Only treatment is provided.

In practical terms, WFP is now only reaching one in 10 of people in need of food assistance and we're at a point where a massive emergency response is urgently needed to prevent a worsening situation.

Somalia faces a really severe malnutrition crisis and is one of the biggest malnutrition hotspots in the world.

GAM rates, malnourishment rates have already reached critical levels at a worst possible time and without immediate funding, not just for the World Food Programme but across across many sectors.

Life saving assistance will continue to shrink and in our case could halt all together in July if resources are not urgently received.

I do need to be very clear on one thing.

We've seen these conditions in Somalia before.

Unfortunately, in 2020, Somalia was on the brink of famine after a prolonged drought.

At that time the warning signs looked very similar to those we're seeing today.

Failed rains, collapsed livelihoods, rising hunger, mass displacement.

But there was a critical difference in 2022.

The international community acted and acted at scale and through rapid coordinated response.

Humanitarian community, the humanitarian community was able to reach record numbers of people with life saving assistance.

And in that case, in that in that instance really pushed famine back from the brink.

Lives were saved at a massive, massive scale, and that experience proved 2 things.

First of all, famine is always preventable.

Second of all, prevention depends on timely action.

Today, we're at that similar decisive moment.

We know the humanitarian community has people on the ground.

WFP has people on the ground.

We've got systems in place.

We know how to respond.

[Other language spoken]

We have the logistical backbone in place to really support a massive humanitarian response and we have 1.7 million people biometrically registered that we can provide cash to almost immediately.

90% currently of food assistance in Somalia is managed by WFP teams.

But as we said, only one in 10 are being supported without funding.

Bottom line, we're not going to be able to deliver.

So our message today is pretty simple.

Please don't wait at now before this emergency becomes a catastrophe.

Scale up support to match the level of need.

Invest not just in response, but also in resilience.

So so communities are not pushed to the brink again and again, but rather have the ability to withstand food shocks.

But right now, in Somalia, the warning signs are unmistakable.

Hunger's rising, coping strategies are collapsing, and a window is starting to close.

[Other language spoken]

When the world steps up, we can turn these things around.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks to you, Matthew, very much.

You paint a bleak picture, but one that absolutely must be told.

So thank you very, very much for that.

We'll turn to you colleagues.

We have one question for you from Reuters.

[Other language spoken]

You mentioned a reduction from 2 million to helping 2 million people to just a fraction of that.

I'm just wondering what the figure is for that fraction.

And also in terms of you were talking about kind of a knock on shocks caused by the situation in the Middle East.

Can you just give us an outline of the latest situation you're facing in terms of therapeutic foods, therapeutic milk?

I understand there's been some NGOs, but not all have been facing shortages.

Perhaps you just give us some comprehensive detail on what situation is, is there and how that is then feeding into this kind of cocktail of, of, of crises that seem to be converging all at once.

[Other language spoken]

Indeed a cocktail of crises.

The, the impact on, on our programmes as such today is that that fraction ranges from 300,000 to half a million instead of 2,000,000 being served.

So it is a much smaller number than we would like to be supporting and that we should be supporting when it comes to therapeutic nutritious foods for to to prevent and treat malnutrition in children.

Across the board organisations are are facing significant shortages.

I mentioned in the, in the facility I visited in Puntland, those, those nurses, those doctors who are supported by World Food Programmes, supported by UNICEF, are having to take horrible decisions each day, sending children away that don't meet levels that are beyond the levels that they should.

They should normally only meet to receive support and treatment because they have a limited supply and they know they can only work within that limited supply.

So it is, it's quite scary to see what's what people are having to do, what professional aid professionals are having to do right now.

We know that, you know, one of the things that we faced in terms of the impact of the the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, we face global supply chain issues.

But just in Somalia itself, containers of, of therapeutic food ready to use supplementary food that were due to come into Somalia arrive 40 days late because of the impact on global shipping on, on supply chains, global supply chains.

And we're not the only ones facing that that that crisis.

While I was in Mogadishu on one of the days we were there, we were sending out three different airlifts of emergency nutritious food for different partners actually in Contrail FM as well as WFP and others to get that assistance out to hard to reach areas urgently because we had lost so much time because of the, the, the slow arrival into the country.

So this is a problem everywhere and it's, as I said, it really is making, you know, it's making it very hard for professionals on the ground who are having to take horrific choices each day on who to serve and who not to.

And bottom line, there is no preventive action taking place or very little because they're simply not the resources or the nutritious foodstuffs to provide preventive activities.

It's only treatment at this stage.

Thank you very much.

That's very clear.

[Other language spoken]

Further questions either in the room or online for Mr Hollingsworth, just double checking.

[Other language spoken]

Let me just answer the question on that was posed previously on Lebanon from to to Mars.

My good friend who's sitting in my old office in Beirut, by the way, because we are all in that we share AUN facility in, in Beirut, 19 convoys have gone so far to the South of Lebanon.

19 interagency convoys have been negotiated to get access into the South so far during this conflict to support 84,500 individuals.

But they're a fraction of those that are approved.

And typically we're only talking about less than 50% getting approval.

So we would like to be doing many more such interagency multi agency and NGO convoys into hard, hard to reach areas, but they are happening.

We just need to be doing a lot more.

Thank you very much Matthew for adding that comment.

Indeed, very important both briefs I think.

I think there are no further questions for you on Somalia or any other questions for that matter.

Thank you very much.

The message is very clear and hopefully we'll get some good reporting out to try to remedy this situation.

[Other language spoken]

And do come back to us anytime, Matthew, for an update on the situation in Somalia or elsewhere.

[Other language spoken]

Oh, sorry, before you leave, I think we do have, I'm not sure if it's for you, but we have Dina from APTN.

Dina, if you could, is this for Matthew or perhaps?

Yes, it is for Matthews?

[Other language spoken]

Just to follow up about the areas where you, you talked about convoys to the South.

Can you just just specify to which areas of the South sewer may be tier or other places?

Can you give us a few more details please?

I think in general it's to the Nabatea region, Bajayun Sword and Tibnin bin Tejabel.

But I mean, I'm giving you a rough area.

I can't give you the exact the exact villages.

I don't have all of the information.

But it's when we're talking about district deliveries, interagency convoys into hard to reach areas, it's getting from Sword as I said, vintage Jabel area, Tibnin, Nabatir and Marjaun.

OK, very well noted.

[Other language spoken]

OK, on that note, I think, I think that does it for questions to you and thank you again.

And please, once again, please do join us at any time here at our briefings here in Geneva.

[Other language spoken]

Thanks to you.

OK, colleagues, just a couple of announcements from me and then if you have any other questions, please pose.

We certainly wanted to highlight a couple of statements, important statements from the Secretary General, which we shared with you this morning.

In fact, 1 was his remarks to the plenary meeting of the General Assembly to launch the expert group report on beyond GDP.

And this was an important address which the report itself, beyond GDP, that's the title of the report, it offered the United Nations first global framework for moving beyond GDP, proposing A wider set of measures to guide economic policy towards well-being and environmental sustainability.

So lots more information on this important report through the SG statement and you can access the report itself online.

Another important statement that we shared with you from the Secretary General speaks to migration with remarks delivered in New York at the International Migration Review Forum.

Among other things, the secretary general highlights, of course, the the plight of migrants around the globe.

And he notes how no country can manage migration alone.

And ultimately the message is we need cooperation across borders, across governments and across society.

So those remarks are in your inbox.

A couple of meetings to announce.

The Conference and Disarmament will kick off its second part of its 2026 session this coming Monday, the 11th of May, under the presidency of the Netherlands.

However, they won't actually meet in public until after the upcoming or the the current review conference on the NPT, so that is throughout next week.

So the following week, the Conference and Disarmament will resume its meetings.

And of course, the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review session continues.

It started this Monday, continues next week.

Today, coincidentally, it is reviewing the human rights situation in Somalia, which we just heard about.

That's going on now and also in this afternoon.

Rather, we have the situation of human rights in Seychelles being reviewed by the UPR Working Group.

Lastly is a press conference to announce this coming Tuesday, the 12th of May.

At 9:30 in this room, we'll hear from UNUP.

the United Nations Environment Programme will be launching its report 2026 Sand and Sustainability and Essential Resource for Nature and Development.

So that will be launched here 9:30 on the 12th of May.

That's all I have for you.

Yeah, Nina is Christian online for WHO Christian is on and I'm sure, yeah, I was anticipating a question to Christian who is always eager to answer you to the extent possible.

Christian, over to you.

But let's see your your question 1st and then I'm sure you have something to say.

[Other language spoken]

Hi Christian.

[Other language spoken]

I know that we had a briefing yesterday with WHO, but since then it seems like there have been quite a few cases that are being talked about.

Yesterday, we were talking about 8 cases, including five confirmed.

Do you have an update on the the number of cases?

And also could you say something about how about the contract tracing itself and how, how complicated that might be when, when you have people who have been on flights to a number of different countries?

If you have any more to say on that, that would be helpful.

[Other language spoken]

So there are a couple of updates that came in overnight and this morning, but the colleagues are putting this together into a new disease outbreak news, which we hope to receive as soon as possible and not only late in the evening.

I know you're all hoping that we do too, but it's not in our hands.

It needs all diligent work and all the data.

Don't forget it's a scientific work on over scientific organisation.

So everything needs to be checked and counter checked.

Hence I do not have figures for you now updated ones.

Please stand by for this seize outbreak news on.

One thing I can confirm though, because that has been in the news already, the the Dutch flight attendant of the flight which had reported symptoms and was tested, has been tested negative for hantavirus that we received this morning from the Dutch IHR focal point for the International Health Regulations according to to these regulations.

So that's very good news and that leads to the contract tracing that you're saying that you that you asked about South contract tracing is indeed a diligent detective work.

It's it's following up on everybody.

It's looking into seat seating, lists of planes of ships, maybe even more tracing somebody's step, seeing where they would have been, might have been in close contact.

Then the normally the the the agent, the provider, the airline, the ship operator, whoever's now mentioned is the one to follow up one.

National authorities are the ones to follow up with with tracing emails, getting into the getting to those individuals and asking them to check for symptoms and normally asking them to report any symptoms they feel.

Check with the medical facility as this, this Dutch flight attendant did and as the, the, the gentleman in, in cherish did.

So this, this is, this is good news.

This shows that the system work is working, but at the same time it's diligent work.

And we of course hope to get every single one on that step.

Maybe a word on the on the infection on the virus as such, because it it's connected with the flight attendant.

She was in close contact apparently with that woman who then later collapsed and and yeah, and then died in in Johannesburg.

Yet she's apparently not infected with the antivirus.

So that is in many directions.

[Other language spoken]

The tracing worked.

The fact that she presented herself with with symptoms worked and the testing shows that she's not infected.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

Yeah, I think Nina, as a follow up, you know, yeah, thank you very much.

So good that that's that, that is good news.

Do you have any indication on the other people who have I, I know there was one couple who are married, so apparently they were in very close contact.

But about the other cases that are confirmed, of how they came in very close contact with the infected cases and also how concerned are you about the people on Saint Helen and other islands where a number of passengers have disembarked and also spent quite a bit of time?

What efforts are underway to to follow up with them?

[Other language spoken]

So on the close context, I have not more information that what we had so far.

There's to my knowledge now the two couples, one where unfortunately both of the them died, the one on ship and the other one in Johannesburg.

And then the other couple with one infected is the one here in Switzerland now where the wife all told she was on the whole journey together.

So this point has not presented any symptoms and is self isolating as as we hear.

So that shows you again.

Luckily, apparently the the the virus is not that contagious that it easily jumps from person to person.

So that's good.

[Other language spoken]

Sorry.

What was the your next point?

Sorry for the your concern about people on the islands where a number of people disembarked.

[Other language spoken]

So the risk for the general population is low.

That is and remains one of the most important messages.

And with these cases we just discussed, it shows you how close contact has to be and yet not no, no, no forward transmission under any normal circumstances.

A normal handling of a person should not present any danger to, to the the individual or to the to the people around.

And definitely if you are a bit further away, the risk is is minimal, if not 0.

So for the general population on an island in in any of the countries, we we don't say 0, but it's an absolutely minimal risk.

[Other language spoken]

Olivia, did you have a question or did I think it was OK?

[Other language spoken]

We do have a couple more for you, Christian online, Stephanie of AP.

Yes, thank you so much.

So you keep talking about how the risk is minimal and it's but how exactly is it spread?

What is it airborne?

We need specifics about how people can contract this.

But conversely, now that the flight attendant has tested negative, does that mean that people should, you know, relax a little bit more?

There's a lot of obviously conspiracy theories going around that sort of feel like we're back in the beginning of COVID, and we'd love you to address that as well.

[Other language spoken]

Let me start from the back of this.

And as we said now multiple times, this is not COVID.

I know and we all know that we have COVID fresh in our minds still and that's the first connection everybody made, hence the international attention to these cases.

Hantaviruses are around since about 30 years that we know about them.

We have a couple of 1000 cases each year globally.

If you recall the press release by the Swiss authorities, they say they have about between zero and six cases they deal with a year.

So this shows you the magnitude of this virus and it's it's a very little small magnitude.

So the hantaviruses is not new.

The antivirus is also known which is, which is the one that the only one we know of that spreads human to human, but only through close contact.

And again, close contact.

It's counter virus brings pulmonary infections, lung, lung disease, respiratory problems.

So that means you're coughing, you're maybe sneezing with fever, but especially the coughing.

And that would be something if that goes directly in in your counterpart's face or whatever body fluids, that would be a risk factor, obviously.

But I need to stress again and again, even those who have been sharing cabins don't seem to be both infected in some cases.

So the risk remains absolutely low.

This is not a new COVID good message is very clear.

We have maybe Stephanie, I want to follow up to your previous question and then we'll take another one afterwards.

[Other language spoken]

So it's we're just trying to dial down and this is it's spread via respiratory.

You know, I know that the six, six feet in the US was the COVID thing.

What is there a number of metres?

Is it you mentioned respiratory, is there a bodily fluid component?

We're just people are people are getting worried and we're just trying to help fact checked and dispel any rumours of how you could or could not get it.

But human to human contact and minimal risk.

We understand that but we're just looking to explain what that means.

[Other language spoken]

And I must say, my feeling is people are getting less worried now because they realise it's not spreading anything close to how COVID was spreading.

The contract tracing is effective because traces those who have been in close contact.

OK, on the, on the distance, I don't have centimetres or metres for you, but it's not at all the distance that we talked about in terms of COVID.

It's not anything close to measles, for example, where if, if you're in your press room here, if somebody on the front was coughing, the first rows would be in trouble.

No, not at all.

Close contact means you have to be basically in your face, your direct counterpart, obviously partners that that's, that's logical, so to say, But I, I can't give you an exact centimetre measurement, but it has to be with, with, you know, anything you, you, you cough out if you say, if you share saliva, that might be something like spitting would also be a problem.

But apart from that, again, let's not forget from from couples who wear clothes or hard clothes, from a flight attendant who handled the the sick woman who just shortly after died and was feeling extremely unwell.

[Other language spoken]

That should convince nearly everybody now that this is a dangerous virus, but only to the person who's really infected.

And it's the risk to the general population remains absolutely low.

Thanks again, Christian, very clear.

Final question, Antonio FA thank you very much.

Some reports say that the the ship the Envy Hondus could arrive in the Canary Islands on Sunday and this is one day later than initially expected.

Some reports before say say the Saturday.

So do you have any information about these this possible delay?

Would it be caused by health related circumstances?

[Other language spoken]

So I don't know exactly when the ship is about to arrive.

That's definitely between the the the the operator and receiving the host country.

But what we know is that the ship had been waiting for two medical doctors from the Netherlands to arrive and board the ship so that they would go with the ship together with our WTO expert on board these three would accompany the ship all the way to the to the next port.

If that was the reason to delay, I can't tell you, but that that they had been waiting for these two medical doctors, hence could only depart then.

Thank you very much, Christian.

And we'll all look out for that disease outbreak update.

And later today, as always, thanks for joining us in for this important update and clarity.

So I think that does it.

No further questions on any other subjects.

On that note, I wish you a good afternoon and a nice weekend.

See you here on Tuesday.

[Other language spoken]

UN Geneva Press Briefing - 08 May 2026