UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : IFRC Press conference

So I think that now we can start.

[Other language spoken]

Everybody.

First of all, I introduce myself.

[Other language spoken]

I'm the president spokesperson at the IFRC.

Thank you for joining us today.

Our president, Francesco Rocca, is online with us.

We'll provide an update on the great work done by the Red Cross Crescent National Societies over the past 12 months in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We'll also speak about the gap in global efforts to equitably.

[Other language spoken]

Our Director of Health and Care Department, Emmanuel de Popianco is also online and will be available for any technical questions.

So before starting logistical points, first, if you want to ask question, please raise your hand after the opening statement, of course, and I'll give you the floor.

This press conference will be recorded and the file will be made available.

At the end I.

Mean after the the press, the press conference and Please remember that everything said in this press conference as well as the press release you will receive afterwards is under embargo till tomorrow.

For any questions about it and for follow up interviews, you can contact our media manager Matthew Cochrane who is.

Online today with.

[Other language spoken]

So after that, I think that we can start.

President Rocca, the floor is yours.

[Other language spoken]

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.

We believe this was a very important occasion to speak about the work and achievements of our Red Cross request and National Societies over the past 12 months in response to the pandemic and also to highlight again our position and our work on ensuring equitable access to vaccines.

As you may remember, last June we launched together with the UN Secretary General Gutierrez, a joint Red Cross with Crescent and United Nations statement on what we call the people vaccine against COVID-19.

We knew since the beginning of this complex time that to respond to a global ****** there is a huge need of a global equitable answer.

Vulnerable people and health workers, including volunteers must be prioritised in every part of the world.

Vaccines, diagnostics and treatments must be available for everyone and not only in the rich countries.

These were our main messages since the beginning and we worked hard to make sure no one is left behind and also being great believers and support of COAX facility.

So today we want to warn a deadly gap in global plan to Ecuador or distribute COVID, the COVID-19 vaccines.

While there is a clearly a growing recognition of the importance of equitable vaccine access, this is not yet translating into investments in all the systems that are needed to turn this ambition into a reality.

Governments and donors are focusing on international procurement and distribution of vaccines to counties.

Procurement and distributions are important, but however, by themselves they are not enough.

Equal attention needs to be paid to how vaccine and other commodities are distributed once they reach countries, including how they reach isolated and marginalised communities.

Living at the real last night put in another way, initiative Life Kovacs ensure the vaccine will reach the tarmacs of airports, especially in the capital cities.

But they do not guarantee the dose vaccine that of the tarmac and out into the arms or home need them.

And so the FOC Watch vaccine plan is possible, designed to close this deadly gap.

Our plan complements effort to procure and distribute vaccine by focusing on measures that will impede distribution within countries.

This includes measures to counter vaccine existence, hesitancy, to build community confidence in vaccines and to ensure that people are informed about when and how they can access vaccines.

Where cost requests and volunteers can also identify **** risk individuals, so might be invisible to authorities for cultural, linguistic or other barriers.

Reason in many last mile settings.

Our plan we also see our trained health personnel directly administered vaccines to people who might otherwise go without one.

Our immunisation plan targets 500 million people around the world.

Already 148 national Red Cross and requested societies are involved in the roll out of vaccine campaigns or have indicated that they will be.

More are in discussions with their governments and we are already playing a crucial role.

But we can and must do more.

And examples of these include like in Brazil, where Red Cross volunteers and staff are vaccinating the extreme isolated communities in the Amazon in Bangladesh.

And the Bangladesh Red Crescent is the government partner of choice in a campaign that has already vaccinated over 3.5 million people.

In the Maldives, the Red Crescent has supported the immunisation of unregistered migrants.

In Greece, a Lenny Quit Cross volunteers and staff are vaccinating migrants.

In Czech Republic, a mobile Red Cross vaccination bus is reaching out to isolated communities, including migrants, and providing them with vaccines.

And to play this role, to help to to in closing this deadly gap, we need urgent and sizeable investment.

The FAC plan requires 100 million Swiss francs today, and we have received only a fraction of these, approximately 3,000,000 Swiss francs.

And without this funding, a gap will remain between the vaccines that will ultimately end this pandemic and some of the most vulnerable and isolated people in the world.

And this gap means that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, and the people will continue to get sick and die.

To be crystal clear, we believe in support initiative focused on procuring the equitable distributing vaccine between quantities.

It is our hope the governments continue to fund initiatives like the Covet Facility.

But there is also a huge need to reach the last mile where our volunteers and the local actors have a critical role to play.

In this press conference, I want also to brief you on the huge work we have done in the last 12 months.

Our volunteers have treated and cared for and supported hundreds of millions of people since the start of the COVID-19 crisis in almost every country with cross and request, and volunteers and staff have been on the front line of this open pandemic.

They have provided a range of life saving and life affirming services and support based on the unique needs of their own countries and communities.

We have grown quickly to meet escalating needs created by COVID-19 and just for example, in the past 12 months we reached 650.5 million people with risk communication, community engagement and health promotion.

We also have reached more than 100.6 million people with 1/4 sanitation and hygiene support and vibrant intervention.

In the context of such an infectious disease.

This is almost three times the number of people reached in 2019.

Furthermore, we supported 8.7 million people with mental health and psychosocial support, which is a key activity in these difficult times.

Loneliness, anger and desperation are unfortunately becoming common in our communities.

And just to give you another impressive number, we reached 79.5 million people with food and other in kind assistance.

Addressing the socio economic impact of COVID-19, we continue to be a key priority for us.

Dramatically, our volunteers witness everyday raising cases of poverty.

The socio economic impact will stay with us even after we will get vaccines and we require a strong joint response that by governments to be sure that no one is really left behind.

We have and this is extremely important for me.

We have localised delivery while many other global appeals have stayed concentrated in the hands of Lege International Organisation.

We have channelled more than 50% of all funds to National Red Cross and the present societies for direct implementation and this is twice the grand bargain target.

These are produced more cost effective and community centre programme.

And as you know, at the IFSC we strongly support the agenda for localization of humanitarian aid.

And this year of pandemic highlighted more than ever the critical role of local actors as our volunteers.

But also all the local actors can play and can make the difference.

They are trusted, they are respecting in the local communities, they know the needs of the most vulnerable, they are always ready to intervene when is needed.

They are trained in time of travel ban.

They are already present in their countries.

Furthermore, we have adjusted our response to ensure we meet new needs as they emerge.

Our research shows that IFAC network response has continually shifted and changed in a bit to keep up the top of the ahead the virus.

For example, in the first six months our main focus was on supporting treatment and care and this shifted in part to a larger focus on understanding community sentiment and countering mistrust and an increased emphasis on responding to the socio economic impacts of the virus.

And finally, in the past three months we have seen an increase in investment in time and resources in preparing for and supporting the equitable roll out of the vaccines.

We have been effective in our use of resources and I was there is IFCO says shows that around the world we are spending money nearly as quickly as we receive it.

Of the one point 74th billion Swiss francs channelled into FFC and National Societies airports, a remarkable 85% has already been spent and we believe this demonstrates both our effectiveness and the importance of the work we are doing.

However, it also means that we need continued investment and support to finish the job.

The FAC has had to counter drops inequalities in funding for COVID-19 care, treatment and support, but the gap still a huge remain very huge and our research show massive discrepancies between different regions in terms of the amount of funding invested in Red Cross and Red Present efforts and where these gaps have been greatest, for example in Africa and Middle East.

IFC has channelled millions in funding to assure that our national society has some capacity to respond.

But this is a drop in the ocean and more needs to be done to ensure that all countries have the resources they need to care for Carry 19 and to vaccinate to the end of the pandemic.

So our goal now is to finish the job.

The developmental rollout of vaccine is rightly being heralded as a sign of the coming end of this pandemic.

But we cannot afford to stop efforts designed to slow the virus spread.

And now we can help efforts designed to support people cope with the illness and its socio economic consequences.

We must not confuse the beginning of the end with the actual end of this pandemic, and even the end of the pandemic in the rich world does not equate with the end of COVID-19.

There is much more to do and we need more and continue to support from our generous donors and partners.

So ladies and gentlemen, now we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we need to work properly in the next month to reach the largest number possible of people around the world.

We are optimistic but we need more vaccine.

We need strong logistics system that is important is strong community engagement mechanism to deliver vaccines to everyone and everywhere.

We also need to continue investing in all other public health measures that we keep up safe and things that we can reach head immunity all over the world.

We can defeat the virus all together and we are ready to do it.

The more vaccine will be available in communities around the world, the faster it will be possible.

This is something especially the Western countries must remember these these run to vaccinate everyone in the most and in the richest countries of the world.

But you know, the variance power changing the game weeks by weeks.

So it is important to vaccinate everyone.

This only will be the end and the safety even for for the richest country that at this moment are playing along their own game.

So I thank you very much and I'm available together with a Manuel of course, for any medical and health detail to answer to your question.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, President Rocca, for your opening statement.

And now I already saw some questions.

I will give the floor to Paola Dupratz.

[Other language spoken]

Paola, the floor is yours.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very.

[Other language spoken]

I just wanted to ask a little bit more about the.

Situation for.

Indigenous people in the Amazon.

You mentioned your efforts in Brazil and I was wondering if you could speak about other countries, other parts of the Amazon?

[Other language spoken]

Located where you might have potentially other places where there you're particularly concerned.

How complicated can this be?

And and also I mean this is a region where I guess classically there.

Hasn't been that much of an.

Involvement of the international humanitarian community as such, do you expect more organisations to to be involved in this in this region for for the the roll out?

I think in my, in my humble opinion, just starting from your second question that's here, we are not talking about the role of the international organisation.

Let me stress the importance of the local actors.

And because they are, they are there and believe me, if we're trained that they can administer vaccines like is happening also, for example, in other places of the world.

So you don't need to be a medical doctor.

Of course it would be the best having medical doctor, but we know perfectly as a reality that we don't have nurses and medical doctors everywhere.

But the most important thing is to vaccinate, vaccinate and vaccinate.

And this is something that is possible involving the the the the local staff and the health workers at local level.

And to do these we need the involvement of the local actors.

I'm talking on behalf of the Red Cross, the present national society.

But as I state clearly, we are we are talking about the role of all the local actors.

Of course we think that we are playing our part in these, but it is important the international organisation understand how the local actors can make the difference and of course then the effort of everyone is more than welcome.

But I don't need that.

I don't, I don't think honestly that the international organisation can, can be a real added value in, in reaching the last mile.

So this is more to, to really empower the, the, the communities and the, and the, and the national realities in doing the, in doing this, we have to, we have now to show the, enough courage to invest in, in, in them.

So, and this is for the first question about Amazon.

I spoke a few weeks ago with the, with the president of the local branch there and remember his, his tears and his desperation, his feeling of desperation in, you know, how, how, how difficult has been the situation in Brazil, especially in, in the Amazon areas, in the rural areas.

And I think that they are doing a great job despite all the difficulties.

And I think that other areas are reached by, by, by the the Red Cross if we don't leave the damaged zone or looking only to Brazil, We know that also part of of Venezuela and other areas that are involved.

And they know perfectly that also the Venezuelan with cross branches are, are involved in, in, in these, in these work in the, in the same in other areas of, of South America.

This is 100%.

Of course they are, they have limited capacity.

This is why we are asking for more support and to support them.

And This is why we are so, so concerned.

But believe me, they, they, if we can see, I would say a positive aspect which is very difficult about COVID-19 is that has been an accelerator, accelerator of, of the, in building the capacities of, of, of the, of the local actors.

And in our case of the Red Cross, Red Crescent, National Societies and the, the travel ban has really created the the right condition.

It was like the perfect storm storm, but with good results in that in this case, creating a really stronger local actors to, to to able really to connect with the needs of their communities.

I hope that I answer to your question then for the numbers of what we are doing in Brazil and in every single country.

I think that Emmanuel and Tomaso can provide you full detailed numbers of each of the countries in in America the same we could say and we can add that about Africa.

You know, I was talking this morning with the, with the Kenya Red Cross about how difficult it is in reaching the, the, the, the rural areas, the remote areas.

Think about Turkana or other region very far from the capital city.

And then the logistic is quite difficult.

All the humanitarians know how difficult it is to reach certain areas of the, of the African region.

Think about this aisle and other places.

And I think that this would be a, a huge challenge and all the efforts are needed really to, to make this possible, to support the government, the health system, the National Health system also in Africa in in doing this to, to avoid consequences of, of the COVID in this in this region.

And believe me, they are paying a **** a **** price even in the remote areas.

Thank you very much, President Roc.

I know that Emmanuel, I want to add something.

Emmanuel, thank you and good afternoon to to you all.

[Other language spoken]

Just to to mention about Brazil is a country that of course has been severely hit by by the the pandemic with 11,000,000 cases and approximately 200 and 5070 thousand deaths.

Until now, Brazil was also one of the countries that started vaccinations early on this year.

I think it was launched in January 18 if I'm not mistaken.

And in the Red Cross has been supporting the, the delivery of vaccines, working very closely to the auxiliary role with the government in the different states.

So it's a, it's a, the federal nature of Brazil really calls for, for different type of, of, of collaboration that really go down to the municipality level where our Red Cross chapters operate.

And Paula, to your point specifically about the, the heart reach communities, we have been particularly working to support the reach of, of indigenous populations in, in the Amazons and in trying to help creating awareness and in, in, in connection with vaccination points, working mostly with tribal leaders.

And also we have.

Worked a lot with the the the migrants communities in cities that have been another specific group that have been particularly challenged.

The area around the riverbanks are particularly challenging for the logistic challenges linked to that.

And also we have been trying to work at that level to create opportunities for for vaccination.

This is of course, is one example of efforts that they're across is playing to reach most vulnerable groups.

We are working across Latin America in in countries like like Chile and Colombia, providing support for vulnerable communities and also outside.

So just this few points from from my side to compliment the words of of the President.

Thank you very much, Emmanuelle.

Now I see another question from Lauren Ciero.

Lauren, the floor is yours.

Yes, thank you and thank you for the press conference.

First, President Rocha, as you mentioned the last 12 months, we know that the your staff and your volunteers are, are often living in the right in the middle of the community.

So any idea of, of how many either staff or volunteers might have been infected or might have been killed by, by the coronavirus in one year?

And then secondly, that's been a month since you launched that new plan.

So out of the 500 million immunisation that you would like to to support, how many of you already been able to to facilitate?

And since that plan depends very much on the supply being through Kovacs or through national rollouts, what kind of constraints do you see to be able to reach that 500 million threshold by the end of the year?

[Other language spoken]

About the number, once again, let me tell you that these are numbers that I'm sure in my, while I can, I can share with you.

We, we, we lost of course, thousands.

But I, I want to be very, very, very honest talking about volunteers and being part of the community.

You never know, unfortunately, how many, because if I look to my national society, the Italian Wood Cross, you know that I belong to the Italian Wood Cross.

And even before being president of, of, of the International Federation, we lost hundreds of volunteers, but many of them just because they were part of the community.

So almost every day I, I have to send condolences one of my branch because they're losing someone in terms of in the line of duty.

This is something that is a bit more difficult to identify when it has happened or not.

And, but as a, as a community members, we are part of this tragedy.

And unfortunately we, we, we, we lost many, many colleagues, thousands, I, I, I would say all around, all around the world.

And 10s of thousands have been affected.

I remember there was a moment that here we had more than 70 people in, in the, in the, in the intensive care last year.

So this is this has been something especially at the beginning, very, very severe because remember how difficult it was to have the, the, the DPI for, for, for everyone.

And so the the first weeks they they have been really tough for all for all of us in terms of numbers of vaccinated.

And how is the, the the Red Cross Red Crescent playing his own part?

I just mentioned as an example the 3 million in in Bangladesh and Bangladesh Red Crescent is vaccinating.

I could mention the Maganda with the dorm in Israel and the, and the if Israel maybe now is identified like a good example.

I mean by in terms of vaccinating the the the the community.

I think that our national society played a terrific role in achieving this important, this important result.

So I think that now we are talking about about millions of people that have been vaccinated by by the Red Cross represent volunteers and staff at in the countries where this is is available about the, the, the covering the gap of the distances and the logistic issue.

I think that we have to monitor carefully.

Like, once again, I think that's really the, the governments, especially the international community and the, and the donors are, are they must look in depth to these if you want to really stop the, the COVID, the COVID-19, I, I think it's time to, to really to make an end to this selfish approach because it doesn't work.

[Other language spoken]

And the variants that are coming from different parts of the world are showing that it doesn't work.

And even the scientists are saying that that's now for, for, for, for our it the vaccines are covering the first part of this is what the scientists are saying, but they are saying also that the risk would be something different for the for the future.

So we have to be careful.

We have to reach everyone.

And so we do need to invest in, in, in the, in the areas in the countries that are logistical difficulties and they're not enough for financial resources to cover, to cover these.

So I'm still optimistic because I, I think that once that the rollout is going and is moving forward, I think that also the, the leaders, the political leaders of those who can change the game, I think they are realising how important it is to vaccinate everyone.

And it's the so-called nationalism of the vaccines is is something that is really ******* when when we are talking about a pandemic.

Thank you very much, President Rocca Manuel.

[Other language spoken]

Let me respond to the issue of the numbers.

As you know, we have launched this immunisation AMNEX for aiming at 500 million people vaccinated by the end of the year, asking for 100 million Swiss francs in support of that.

The data that we have are of course coming in on a daily basis.

Numbers are still relatively small, but they are going to expand as as the the vaccines become more and more available.

What we do have is that around 7 million people have been vaccinated with the support across requests and national societies all over the world.

The majority of them have been in in Asia Pacific.

We have been very much supporting the the distribution in in the Americas as was mentioned before in the the Middle East, Morocco has been one of the countries least Africa that has been pushing very much the the vaccination and and our Rec Crescent has been very strongly supporting.

Also, we have been very active in in Europe, both Western Europe and and Eastern Eastern Europe.

So 7,000,000 is the total.

But what I also wanted to share with you is that within that annex that appeal that we, we, we launched, we also included the important imperative of maintaining coverage, immunisation coverage for other diseases that are not COVID-19.

And here I can report that with the with the financing received, we have supported 6 million people and the majority of this are in Africa where we we cannot yet deliver vaccines, COVID-19 vaccine because they are only now coming in.

But we have been very active in providing other type of of vaccines.

I would like to make two small points in, in relation to, to your question about, about the, the, the challenges that we see.

We have spoken and the President has spoken very clearly about the deadly gap that exists at the moment in order to ensure that vaccine reached the arms of of the people in need.

What we are seeing that the financing, global financing has been primarily focused on the procurement of vaccines and the and the distribution between countries.

This is very positive.

But what we are not seeing is an analogue investment in the other part, which is the the, the distribution part, the social mobilisation, the mobilisation of of communities on on the ground, the logistic, the organisation, the operational cost for the delivery of vaccine.

And that gaps is deadly.

That is the gap that that we, we wanted to highlight today where the Red Cross, Red Crescent can really make make a difference.

And, and out of the 100 million francs that were presented in the, the, in the appeal that was recently launched for the immunisation, we have so far gained only 3%.

So it's really imperative that we look at filling that gap because without that, we are not going to be able to, to vaccinate the people in, in need.

And I'm and I'm speaking very openly and very clearly.

I was this morning in touch with the team from from the Bangladesh Rec Crescent that has been with 15,000 volunteers on the ground since February to support vaccination.

But what they were telling me, the secretary general was telling me we have money to run our support only until the end of the month.

Without extra support, we are not going to be able to continue the incredible support to, to, to, to the government in areas as complex as as Cox Bazaar, where we do have 10 clinics, where we do have hundreds of volunteers on the ground supporting, supporting vaccination efforts.

So this is where why this is an important moment is why this deadly gap is for us a priority that needs to be addressed.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, Manuel.

If there are no other questions, last minute.

[Other language spoken]

OK, so I know I, I thank you very much for all the journalists who joined us.

I know that these are very busy days for all of us.

Thank you President Rocca.

[Other language spoken]

And you will receive afterwards the press release with also the link to our one year report.

And Please remember that these all what we said today plus the press release is under embargo till.

Tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

IFRC Press conference - 12 months of Covid 9 March 2021