IFRC press conference 04 February 2021

Hi, good morning, everyone.

Thank you so much for joining us here this morning for this important announcement.

As we flagged, we'll be announcing a new 100 million Swiss franc initiative to to support the vaccination efforts aiming to reach about 500 million people.

This is, we believe a really tangible contribution to to global commitments to ensure equitable access to to COVID-19 vaccines.

We're also using this morning as a chance to really flag our concerns about trends we're seeing away from equitable access.

[Other language spoken]

He's the Secretary General and CEO of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

We also have Doctor Manuela Capobianco on the line.

He is able to answer any of the more technical questions that you might have.

Obviously, if you have questions, please raise your hands.

Jagan will speak briefly at the at the beginning and then we'll get straight into questions.

So Jagan, the floor is yours.

Over to you.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Matt, and thank you for joining us.

Ladies and gentlemen, this morning, I would like to do 2 simple things.

First, I want to sound an alarm about our increasing concerns over the inequity we are seeing in the roll out of vaccines.

And 2nd, I also want to announce that Matt just mentioned a new Red Cross Red Cast initiative that will help ensure that equitable distribution is indeed possible.

The current lack of equity in the roll out of COVID-19 vaccine is alarming and could backfire to deadly and devastating effect.

As it stands now, we estimate that more than 2/3, actually almost 70% of the COVID-19 vaccines doses that have been administered so far is in the 50 wealthiest of countries.

And in contrast, only 0.1%, only 0.1% of doses have been administered in the 50 poorest countries.

So 70% in the 50 wealthiest countries and 0.1% in 50 poorest countries.

This is alarming because it's unfair, but it's also because it could prolong and even worsen the terrible pandemic.

Let me be clear, in the race to end this pandemic, we are all rowing the same boat.

We cannot sacrifice those at the highest risk in some countries so that those at lowest risk can be vaccinated in others.

This pandemic only ends when enough of the old population is vaccinated.

And this is a very, very important message that if we want to end this pandemic, enough of the entire world's population must be vaccinated, not only in some part of the world 100% vaccination and in other parts of the world 10 point 1% vaccination.

That's not the way to end this pandemic.

The equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccine between and within countries is more than a moral imperative.

It is the only way to solve the most pressing public health emergency of our time.

Without equal distribution, even those who are vaccinated may not be safe.

If large pockets of the globe globe remain unvaccinated, the COVID-19 vaccine virus will continue to circulate and will continue to mutate.

This emergence, the emergence of strains that do not respond to vaccine may allow the virus to infect people that may have already been vaccinated.

In shorter scenario, the emergence of variants in faraway low income countries would sat at the illusion of safety in, well, their countries.

And of course, the longer the virus burns, the longer the global economy will suffer.

So today we add our voice again to calls for equality and fairness.

Otherwise, we risk going back into the darkest days of the pandemic, and perhaps we risk facing days that are even darker and deadlier.

However, we also recognise that equality doesn't just happen by itself.

The history of the world tells us that the same is true for vaccines.

Equity needs to be engineered and planned for right from the start, and This is why we are presenting to you our vaccine plan that aims to support the vaccination of 500 million people.

What do we mean by this?

First, even before vaccines arrive, we need to build trust.

And this is absolutely important.

As you have seen in many parts of the world, because of various rhetorics going around the world, the trust on the vaccine was eroded.

We have seen the devastation that can be wrought on public health by misinformation.

Indeed, we warned about this ****** already last December.

This needs to be actively countered so that when vaccines arrive, people put themselves forward to receive them happily and voluntarily.

This is a role our network has been playing since the beginning of the pandemic.

Our Red Cross, Red Cross teams Our Red Cross teams in Austria are aggressively countering misinformation through their Austria Vaccinate initiative.

The Red Cross is working with civil society, the private sector, celebrities and medical experts to share reliable, objective information about the vaccination process.

The campaign has contributed to a decrease in vaccine hesitancy, according to National service, with hesitancy deaths dropping from 27% in December 2020 to 16% in in January.

Just in one month, we could see the, you know, huge drop in the rates of vaccine incidency in Austria.

Then we need to build awareness about vaccine campaigns, including ensuring that vulnerable and isolated communities are included.

To achieve this, national vaccine campaigns need to actively seek out all people in need.

This is a role that the IFRC network can play.

It's one we are already playing.

For example, in the Dominican Republic, the Red Cross is leading national efforts to raise awareness about COVID-19 vaccines.

This includes leading on a nationwide survey to SS knowledge and attitudes regarding COVID-19 vaccines.

In addition, the Red Cross is also leading efforts to reach out, reach out to at risk and excluded groups that may struggle to access vaccines.

And once vaccines arrive, we will be involved in their helping in their delivery.

This is already happening in Europe, in the UK and Austria for example, and it will happen around the world, for example in Bangladesh.

The Red Crescent estimates that 15,000 of his volunteers will be involved in the national immunisation effort.

These volunteers will play a variety of roles from identifying and including isolated communities to actually delivering on the vaccines themselves.

As I mentioned, our immunisation plan targets 500 million people around the world.

Already 64 national Red Cross and education societies are involved in the roll out of vaccine campaigns or have indicated that they will be.

Dozens more are in discussions with their governments.

They will play a variety of crucial roles and, and some of these roles would be primarily focused around of course, building trust and, and really advocating for the equitable access and distribution of the, of the vaccines.

I think that's, that's extremely, extremely important.

So our our campaign here is focusing primarily around the pipe pillars as I was describing before.

1 is of course about advocating for access and equitable distribution.

Second is around building the trust on vaccines and on the processes and on the system.

Then of course, in countries, depending on the capacities, we will also be supporting the health facilities and actually in the outreach facilities to support on the actual delivery of the vaccines.

Of course, there are certain areas where the reads is very, very difficult for various regions.

And because of our presence in the local communities, we will also be offering our support to reads the hard to reach areas.

And of course, we also want to support the ongoing immunisation campaigns.

As you know, in many parts of the world, the ongoing immunisation campaign have been badly affected by pandemics.

In each of those, these roles, our national societies and our volunteers would contribute to the equitable and fair distribution of vaccines, which remains our best hope for ending this awful pandemic.

This plan, our plan we are presenting to you today, complements and supports Kovacs, which remains the international community's main means of ensuring equitable access.

Kovacs is a crucial initiative that we hope will ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are distributed fairly between countries.

Our plan is making Our plan is about making sure that those vaccines make it out of capitals and into the arms of vulnerable, at risk and isolated individuals and communities.

When the COVAX management vaccine buffer becomes available, our national Red Cross and Redcation societies will also be ready on the ground to facilitate its delivery to overlooked and vulnerable communities.

Finally, a word of caution, vaccines are alight at the end of this long dark tunnel, but until we reach sufficient levels of immunity in every country, in every part of the world, we are still walking through that tunnel and we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded by the light.

It is still important that people practise the simple methods that can protect them and their families from the bias.

The simple practise #1 maintain physical distancing.

And we are not talking here about social distancing.

Actually, we want people and communities to stay socially close, support each other, of course, through virtual means, but maintain physical distancing with close and strong social solidarity, Wear a mask and wash your hands.

So these things are very, very important while we roll out the vaccines.

With this, I want to thank you and of course, very happy to take questions.

[Other language spoken]

Let's first go to to Jeremy over to you.

[Other language spoken]

I would like to ask a question about what's The Who released yesterday.

It released its first COVAX distribution list and among the countries that will receive the the next million doses from COVAX are rich countries like Canada who already secured enough vaccines to vaccinate like 4 times its population.

So I was wondering if the IFRC is calling those rich countries to give away those vaccine allowed by COVAX and to give them to low and middle income countries.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for the questions.

I understand actually Canada clearly in a much better position than number of other **** risk countries, but I understand that they are also quite struggling to get the type number of actions they want to get.

But that putting that aside, your question is very, very important.

So one of the calls we are making here to some of the wealthier national is that of course we have to prioritise the Atris communities everywhere, including in the in the wealthier countries, Atris communities.

Of course, the the workers on the front line, the doctors and nurses and the volunteers who are on the front line, They have to be prioritised everywhere, including in the in the wealthier countries.

But we are what we are asking here is that once you have secured the number of doses of the vaccine, part of the **** risk category, at risk category, please share this with other countries.

This is definitely our call and we will continue to continue to make that call because it's it's as I mentioned in my opening statement that if we don't vaccinate everybody who needs it everywhere on earth, none of us can be safe.

So this, this, this illusion of the safety will unfortunately be softer.

So we are definitely asking for the Richard countries to share anything beyond what they need to support their at risk communities and the front line workers to share equitably with other peers all around the world.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Jake and let's go to Laurent.

All right, thanks, Matt, and and thanks SG.

[Other language spoken]

The first one, a clarification about the plan.

So the goal is to reach the these 500 million people this year or is the deadline beyond this year?

And then secondly, you mentioned COVAX.

How are you going to collaborate with UNICEF, which is in charge of the shipping, the doses for COVAX in order for you volunteers on the ground, as you said to be ready right away when they when they arrive to, to disseminate them within the countries?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Laura, I think on, on your first questions, yes, our, our plan to these 500 million people is for this year 2021.

But as you also see that, you know, things are evolving, things are changing.

So of course, we will very, very closely monitor the, the, the, the development and, and we will see whether we have to continue the campaign beyond 2021 too.

So at the moment, we want to, we plan to reach 500 million people this year, but with the, with the open eye and close monitoring and we will adapt.

If we have to adapt, it's, it's this pandemic has shown that, you know, you can really not be shortened with anything.

Things things are changing, things are going absolutely.

On your second question, we are absolutely want to collaborate with organisers like WHO, like Gabby, you know, like like UNICEF.

And the whole idea behind our plan is to complement those efforts not to, not to compete.

And as I mentioned in the opening statement, we have to start preparation, you know, building the trust, addressing the vaccine hesitancy, you know, you know, really preparing the communities to be ready to receive the vaccine sometimes takes time.

So that's why some of these things are already starting.

We actually already started months ago and we will continue to work on that so that once the vaccine reach the capitals, of course, then the vaccines actually they will be only useful once they get into the arms of the people.

So this is our contribution here would be complementary to be to the work done by UNICEF and actually procuring and getting the backs into the countries.

Of course, the work done by The Who with, with the national authorities in, in, in number of those countries.

And of course also with GAVI, of course, WHO is playing a big role in, in, in sort of putting together go back.

So this will be in complementarity to them.

And you know, we are in close discussion, close contact.

We see it's a number of working groups together with this organisation.

And this is really about collaboration and complementarity.

Thanks Jake and Antonio at FA.

[Other language spoken]

So a few technical questions on this plan, which countries or regions are going to be targeted by, by your your campaign are the same than Kovacs or different?

And are you in direct talks with the pharmaceuticals to buy doses?

I, I understand you will need like 1 billion doses.

And if you are in contact, can you tell us which are these these pharmaceuticals and are they going to sell these doses at a minimum price?

And my last question is when do you think these vaccinations by the FIIRC would, would begin this year?

[Other language spoken]

Let me start and, and, and Emmanuel may want to come in on, on, on more on more technical sides brought OD.

Our plan is not to buy the vaccines as I mentioned already before, you know, the, the, the, the, of course the national governments are buying the vaccines already.

They are making contacts with the, with the different suppliers.

And then of course the, the, the UNICEF, as the, the previous colleagues mentioned, the UNICEF is doing the, the procurement of the vaccine which are part of the the COVAX facility.

So we as IFRC are not planning to actually procure the vaccines by ourselves.

We want to, we want to actually complement the work already done by others.

There may be very specific situations where we may have to, but that's not our plan and our plan doesn't indicate to that.

Our role primarily is around the pipe pillars as as I described before 1 is around the advocacy, the advocacy of vaccine for equitable access to the vaccines to to the vaccine everywhere, every country, but also within the within the country.

There cannot be also discrepancies within the within the within the country.

So ensuring geographical acuity and access to vaccine acuity and vaccine access at the national level are protecting volunteers and staff, of course of the organisers like ourself and many other organisers who have volunteers on the ground.

And then of course, ensuring that the critical immunisation things continue.

So that's really around the advocacy.

The second part is around building the trust, the community engagement, you know, addressing the vaccine hesitancy issues.

And this can happen in the example I gave before, can happen in Bangladesh, but also can happen in Austria or, or in UK.

So this is the the building trust and the advocacy is for every country.

You know, it's not only for this country or the other poorer countries.

And the third pillar, as I described before, is around supporting the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines in health facilities and of course, during the outreach, outreach outreach events.

And 4th is reaching the most difficult areas, have to reach hard to reach areas in different parts of the world.

And then finally supporting our network and and our volunteer presence to to to ensure that the normal immunisation campaign can also continue.

So just to just to clarify that this is not about IFRC going and buying the vaccine ourselves, but us supporting through this five pillar measures to the national authorities and these organisations to make sure that the vaccines once available, once there is the capital actually gets delivered in the arms of the people who need it.

I hope this clarifies and I don't know Emmanuel, if you want to add in.

Thank you, Jagan, and thank you, Antonio for for the questions.

As mentioned, we are already supporting vaccinations in a number of countries, the Secretary General mentioned.

Austria mentioned Bangladesh, but we are actively supporting vaccination efforts in, in Brazil, in Morocco, in Kuwait.

So a lot of places where, where things are moving already.

What we know is that we have more than 60 national societies that are already in agreements with their, with their governments to, to, to support the, the, the campaigns.

And we are working our national societies, the, in countries are working with the governments to define the role that across requests and societies will be able to, to play with support from, from the IFRC.

And we see this going beyond 100 countries.

And, and we, we, we imagine this will be expanding as vaccines start reaching all, all these countries.

And yes, there will be certainly a lot of overlap with countries supported by COVAX.

The important point, as the secretary general mentioned, we are not planning to, to procure vaccine.

We work with government supporting their immunisation plan.

We work with UNICE, we work with WHO really in an effort to bring this particularly to the most remote population, most vulnerable population in poor countries and in rich countries, because that's also where the most vulnerable are.

And that's where we are very much focused to ensure that, you know, the, the population most most vulnerable can, can actually be achieved ideally first and certainly not, not last.

Thank you very much, Amanda Welly colleagues, I'm aware that that Jagan's image is, is not, is not as good as we want it to be.

We've got colleagues working on on that to to to fix the problems with the Internet.

It's not a problem of focus.

It's just an issue of bandwidth, but hopefully that's being rectified.

The next question is from Freddie Malongo.

Freddie, I'm not sure what outlet you're from.

Sorry, we Bonjour received the possible question of horses.

[Other language spoken]

The person vulnerable.

SUA vaccine la Tanzani who received the letter mem apri for Contra de COVID mercy.

[Other language spoken]

I think Emmanuelle, you might be best placed to respond to this.

I think you speak French.

Is that correct, Emmanuelle?

Unfortunately not by I can, I can respond to the question.

I do understand it, but I can respond in English.

Freddy, is that OK or would you like us to pick this up after the press conference and we can get you someone to to speak to you in French?

It's it's, it's your, it's your choice.

[Other language spoken]

So the question, and just just also bring it to the secretary General in case he wants to add is, is about how we can raise the importance of of vaccines, particularly in places where there is a lot of hesitancy that comes also at the higher level.

So there have been a lot of campaigns against against vaccination.

What is the role of the Red Cross Crescent?

What I can say, uh, Mr Secretary General, with your permission, is that, that we, we have, um, we have been working, uh, we work in, in building this trust at, at various level.

We started the community level and that's, I think the, the massive strengths of the, the Red Cross volunteers who are within the communities and can understand the concerns and the fears of the communities and work with those.

You mentioned Tanzania.

I can, I can bring the, the, the Democratic Republic of Congo where when the, the, the Ebola vaccine was introduced a couple of years ago in the midst of a, of a terrible epidemic, there was enormous resistance.

But it was through the work with the community at the community that, that we were able to, to turn this around.

And again, you just heard the data from Austria, very different context.

But even in Austria, like in the communities in North Kivu, there was a lot of hesitancy against the vaccine.

And I think the same, the same type of approach that their cross as adopted in Congo is the one that will be winning communities in, in, in Austria and Europe and elsewhere.

And it's really listening to people understanding their, their, their, their, their concerns and then supporting them by by providing the responses.

And, and of course, we are one part of a larger mechanism and, and, and we do our part within that structure.

But we have seen the, the, the impact and, and it's something that we'll continue be doing in all countries through work at the community level.

And of course, also work through other outlets, being radio, being traditional media or being the social media, which we know have been so important.

Unfortunately, bringing out a lot of fake news about vaccination, but are also very positive tools that can be used to promote positive messages.

[Other language spoken]

And maybe just to add 2 words, Freddy, you know, this is, This is why it takes time.

This is why we are already starting this work with the communities and bottoms up.

And, and, and it's not an EG work, especially if there is a hesitancy at A, at A, at a level, at A, at an influencers level, It's, it's, it's a much tougher walk in those countries.

So building that bottom up approach, involving the communities, engaging the volunteers from that communities and really getting the right information without being part of the politics, without being part of the divisive communication that can happen, unfortunately in, in, in, in different platform.

But it's staying true to the facts, to the science and to really looking into the interest of the people, say held at heart.

And that's what we do.

And it's a red credit case And that's what our history has been.

That's what our brand is all about.

And we believe that with that work involving in the communities, we believe we will be able to enough to change enough minds, if not everybody to ensure that there is enough coverage to build the to build the the the hard immunity.

[Other language spoken]

Whaley, let's go to to Charlotte.

Charlotte, over to you.

Hi, it's Charlotte Diebenski from RT Thanks for letting us join this morning.

I wanted to pick up on some of the issues around the politicisation of the vaccine.

Last year, when the Sputnik V vaccine was given emergency approval in Russia, there was a lot of doubts, particularly in the Western media, about its use, its efficacy and the trials at that stage.

Since then, obviously, we've seen very little movement.

We're waiting obviously for the EMA in the European Union to decide whether that vaccine can be approved for use in Europe, but that vaccine has been rolled out in many other countries across the world, poorer countries in Brazil, Mexico, I I believe in Pakistan as well.

We now know through the Lancets published its own study on this and it's proven that Sputnik 5 is one of the most efficable vaccines there is.

And obviously in regards to comparing that, say, against the Pfizer Biontech vaccine, far easier to and far easier to roll out.

The question really is, how concerning is it to you that there has been a huge amount of politicisation, not just against, say the Russian vaccine, but also against the vaccine from China, which also seems to have a **** efficacy.

Thank you very much, Charlotte.

Amanda Welli, I think because this is about vaccines, you might be best placed, Jagan, Obviously, feel free to to jump in once Amanda Welli is done.

Amanda Welli, over to you.

So I'm I'm covering the technical aspects.

I'll leave the political ones to my boss, but let me let me state very clearly, safety and efficacy are a critical criteria when it comes to, to, to deploying vaccines in, in, in this response.

And, and we as a, as a Red Cross have certainly been called, been calling for ensuring the, the maximum safety and efficacy.

And, and we really support the, the analysis of, of all the data, the publication of all the data.

And that is something that is very important to ensure and accelerate so that the approval mechanism can be accelerated.

What we need at the moment is more vaccines that are of proven efficacy and proven safety out on the ground so that we can bring them into the arms of the people who need them.

And, and we need to go with science.

So we need to have safe and efficacious vaccines and, and we need to keep as much as possible, I would say politics away away from it.

And I think we are in a very peculiar moment where a lot of vaccines are coming to to to the finish line.

I think we will be in a very different states in a few months where all, all, all more vaccines there will be, there will a larger supply and hopefully there will be the ability to to provide more and more people with vaccinations.

So I do have an optimistic outlook personally on, on the the quantity of vaccines that will be arriving over time.

It's just right now a very difficult crunch, crunch face that we need to to overcome.

And again, the principle of global solidarity is critical at this moment and the principles of of science, good science is also equally, equally important.

Thanks, Emmanuel.

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, no, I think Emmanuel covered everything.

The number one thing is the safety.

I think that's absolutely important.

And and because we are not a regulatory sort of organisation, so so of course we rely on organisations who have the competence on these issues to help and advise the government that organise like WH OS.

But the important thing is, you know, we call part is the vaccine has to be safe and that and that's extremely important.

Second thing is of course it's based on data and science.

But what we really like to call on to all the governments is to demonstrate that global solidarity.

I think we saw that the strong solidarity in the beginning when the pandemic started on sharing the data and information among the scientists from different countries.

And I think all these researchers came together.

And I think that's one of the reason why the development of the vaccine has been much faster this time, because we saw that scientific solidarity, that solidarity around the research and sharing data.

And I think we need exactly that type of solidarity now around also the approval of the vaccines.

You know, really that will be very, very important.

And that's what we call we call her.

And the third thing we call her is really there must be no politics and there must be no greed around the vaccines.

This is about saving lives.

[Other language spoken]

Let's not have the greed.

This is very, very important call we want to make.

[Other language spoken]

So just to flag, we've got a 10 maybe 15 minutes left with with Jagan and Amanda Welly before we'll have to wrap this up.

I see two more questions, Jamie at the national.

Jamie over to you first and then Robin at AFP after.

[Other language spoken]

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for this.

I wanted to ask in particular about ensuring that refugees and migrants are included in the process.

Obviously as, as, as everyone, everyone knows often they're living in isolated makeshift camps, They're facing hostility sometimes from local authorities and, and from central government.

And I just wondered sort of what added pressures you, you see in terms of including them in the vaccine programmes and then also just physically getting the vaccine to you know, some, some of which obviously as we know need to be stored in very low temperatures.

What added problems do you foresee in terms of physically getting the vaccine to these sorts of places?

[Other language spoken]

Jagan, Jamie, very important question and I think I should have mentioned this when I was talking about, you know, had to these communities and I think this had to these communities, of course includes the migrants and and and and refugees and also a number of countries actually sort of so-called undocumented migrants, you know, who don't have the proper documentation.

And of course they have a much more difficulty to access the the normal health services even in a normal situation, of course this will become very, very difficult.

So the 4th filler in our plan is actually about also these communities.

Now again here, you know, the, the, both the aspect of the hypocracy and the trust are come here.

The advocacy is very simple logic.

If we are vaccinating the communities around the refugee camps, but not the refugees themselves, how we can ensure that those, those neighbouring communities, the worst in communities would be safe?

It's a very simple advocacy discussion we need to have with the authorities, with the government, just to, just to have a very sensible conversation here.

The same thing goes with the, with the migrants, including on the, on the undocumented migrants that if we exclude these marginalised group of communities, the, the, the, the safety we believe we have brought it through the vaccines would be false.

So we will continue to engage with that.

Of course, we expect this to be not easy in, in, in, in different parts of the world, but through, you know, regular engagement and, and persuasion, we believe that we will, we will be able to, we will be able to make a difference.

And I know in some of the countries, actually our national societies are already working with the with the with the authorities in, in this regard, the countries which are hosting, which are hosting refugees and the and the migrant population.

But this definitely remains one of our top priorities to advocate fun and to build roster, maybe manually you can come in.

[Other language spoken]

Just to add 1 one point, the the priority is of course to have vaccines available for these populations.

And in this regard we are working very closely with Kovacs for the establishment of the so-called humanitarian buffer that should guarantee and this is still being under negotiation, but hopefully up to 5% of the vaccines provided by by Kovacs for this this population.

We want this to be established, we want this mechanism to be effective and we are working with the rest of the humanitarian community for these to happen.

And then we'll be on the grounds, we have a lot of mobile teams and then teams working with migrants in, in many, in many refugee camps and, and, and migrant settings.

And, and we will, they are already doing a lot of other activities related to health that will be added then into, into their, their role.

And so we, we plan to, to, to play a major role provided that that vaccines can be secured for these populations.

[Other language spoken]

I would just add to that, that we actually do have an, in a number of contexts, teams that are working to provide health services to, to to vulnerable migrants to undocumented migrants, including vaccination services.

I'm talking here specifically about Greece, Northern Macedonia and Bosnia as well.

And those services could very easily be be handed over to, to national COVID vaccine efforts.

But as as Jagan and Amanda Welly has said that all the the the fundamental decision needs to be taken by by authorities, by the government and we'll advocate for them to take that decision.

Robin at AFP over to you.

And thank you so much for your patience.

[Other language spoken]

Morning everybody.

Just three points, if I may.

Firstly, where does this plan fit in in, in the scale of your commitments this year?

Is this, is this your biggest commitment for 20/21?

And secondly, in some countries will the IFRC actually be administering vaccines, actually injecting people?

And thirdly, just about what contact you've already had with governments as to what you can actually do on the ground, you know, is that is that process already well under way?

[Other language spoken]

Jagan, I think you're best placed on on each of those.

Yeah, I think on, on, on your first question that is it the is it the biggest as you know, the the rest of the rest of the vaccine response programme are continued.

You know, we have to globally around $2 billion worth of vaccine the the COVID response programme continues.

So, you know, the mental health issues continues to remain a huge, huge, huge issue.

The impact on other health areas continues to remain a big issue.

The impact on you know socio economic impact of the COVID continues to demand a issue.

So this actually pits into this global picture of the 2 billion programme we have for the for the COVID response.

So this is a new component of that major programme.

But from the point of view of having a significant impact, we believe this will be a very, very important element of of of that response.

On the issue of actually directly administering the vaccine as IFRC, we are not foreseeing as IFRC to get involved, directly involved on that.

But in some of the countries, our national societies have that relations with the government and they already run hospitals and things like that.

In those situations we where we already have that capacity and those are the only places we will be, our national societies would be involved, but that would be done as part of the already existing relationship with the with the National Health, National Health system.

But beyond that, we are not pursuing to administer the vaccines directly by ourselves.

And then on the engagement with the with the governments, I think as Emmanuel mentioned earlier, around 64 countries that already the discussions are taking place and they are at a maturity stage and what roles the National Red Cross dedication society to play as part of the national system.

Of course, working with other international organisation in the country.

And we expect this to go beyond 100 countries in in coming months.

[Other language spoken]

No, I think I think you, you, you get everything not just just to say this is really part of just to reiterate your point maybe Mr Secretary General of of this being part of a larger plan that has been in place now for for a year of, of support towards reducing the impact of COVID, the mortality and morbidity to COVID reducing the secondary health impact that we are seeing mounting in, in.

In, in countries from, from, you know, from miss vaccination, if you want to have a vaccination to mental health issues and and so on.

But then also confronting the social economic impact of, of this disease, something that we have been really trying to, to, to, to, to support by by providing cash transfers, by providing education programmes, they're protecting women against gender based violence.

The request is really working on, on, on a, on a wide range of, of issues related to, to this, to this pandemic and, and vaccination is 1 of it is an important one, but it's not the only one.

And we keep saying from a health point of view, if I may, that the first line of defence remains individual behaviour.

And that is what for all the people that won't have a vaccine will remain the first line of defence.

And then for those who have vaccines, of course, we will be able to to move fast and protect them and protect all the communities then eventually protecting all all of us.

So we're working on several tracks at the same at the same time.

[Other language spoken]

This might be the the last question unless there's anyone who who who desperately wants to jump on after Paula.

Yes, hi, I write with the new humanitarian.

I have a question just going back to the, the refugees, whether IFRC or whether IFRC might have been involved at all in any talks about getting the Venezuelan migrants vaccinated in Colombia after President Duque had initially said that he was not going to be vaccinating the that community.

Jagan, are you are you able to answer that?

No, I'm not, I don't, I don't know about this specific, this particularly specific situation of, of the of the Venezuelan refugees in in Colombia.

But one thing I want to share with you, Paula, is that, you know, we have been working with the Colombians across to support the the Venezuelans moving to Colombia for the last number of years.

And we have actually quite elaborate programme in, in support of, of, of the of the Venezuelan migrants in, in, in Colombia.

So this is something we want to look at further.

I don't know, Emmanuel, you already know some details, but we would, we would advocate for that and, and whatever support we can provide, we will provide that.

But I have to look into the into the details, Paul, on that.

This particular situation, Emmanuel, I don't know whether you know the this particular situation more.

I can only say that this is one of of the potential beneficiary groups of, of the humanitarian buffer.

And so that's where this this issue is coming up and being and being tabled.

And of course, we are, as I mentioned before, strongly supporting the establishment as fast as possible, this humanitarian buffer exactly to support those those groups that may not be receiving vaccines from from the the host host nations.

So we are doing our advocacy through that internally.

[Other language spoken]

My colleagues Theresa and Natalie will will follow up with you on this after the call to see if we can we can give you more information on that.

I think we're going to call it a call it a day now.

Thank you everyone for attending.

Obviously this is a really important announcement for us, an important initiative going forward.

We appreciate your support in, in helping us raise awareness of this to governments because obviously it it won't go anywhere without their support without, without their financing.

And that's a message that we'll be taking directly to our donors this afternoon in a, in a, in a separate briefing.

So if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to get in contact with me or any other members of of our media team.

We'll put out a press release in the next 15 minutes that recaptures some of the **** points of this, including some really strong quotes from Jagan's opening.

And I understand that this recording will also be available either through the UN team, who we thank deeply for their support, or through us.

So if you have any other questions, please do get in touch.

Jagan and Amanda Wiley, thank you so much for your time.

I know you're both so busy, but I think this was really worthwhile.

Thanks very much, everyone.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you everyone.