TRANSKRIPT 🔗
WEBVTT
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Hello and welcome to this special series from Inside Geneva.
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In partnership with Geneva Graduate Institute's Global Health Center and SwissInfo, I'm Imogen Folkes.
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Since 1948, thanks to the diversity and the commitment of its 194 member states, the World Health Organization has had a profound impact on improving the health of human beings around the world.
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A vaccination campaign to combat the polio virus, which has re-emerged in Gaza for the first time in a quarter of a century, continued on Monday.
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The United Nations-led mission is working with Palestinian health authorities.
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Supporting health services and tackling disease outbreaks in conflict zones.
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Ebola keeps spreading in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo.
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It's moving so quickly.
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The World Health Organization adds it's outpacing response efforts.
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And advising on essential medicines.
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But it's also an organization facing huge challenges.
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The United States, a key donor and global superpower, has left.
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Oh, that's a bad one.
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Other member states are cutting their funding, and public health advice everywhere is being undermined by myths and disinformation.
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So who really wants to be the WHO's Director General?
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In this series, each episode brings you an in-depth, exclusive interview with a candidate for the job.
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Today we hear from a WHO outsider who has dedicated himself to saving the lives of children with cancer.
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In general, people are dying not because of the lack of knowledge or science, but because of lack of equity, lack of access.
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And this is, I think, the worst thing.
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In 2021, out of 8 billion vaccine doses, and I think this is WHO numbers, only 3% went to Africa.
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While the other countries already were doing a booster dose, I wish the world would be more equal.
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At least in the healthcare, and that is our mission, the WHO mission.
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And as a physician, that is our mission.
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We see like an octopus kind of structure.
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There is a big head in Geneva, and there are tails to the countries.
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No, it should not be like that.
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The strongest foundation of WHO should be in the countries.
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There are failures, of course, there are mistakes, of course.
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But I'm convinced that the world is much better with world health organization than without it.
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Whatever we can criticize, but certainly it does amazing work as well.
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But just before we start, some information about our editorial process.
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Geneva's prestigious graduate institute has invited all the candidates for an interview.
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We have key questions about global health challenges and about leading the WHO, which all candidates are asked.
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And some individual questions, because of course we want to get to know them not just as health leaders, but as people too.
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And the order in which our episodes appear has no significance.
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It's simply related to which candidate found time for us when during their very busy schedules.
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So let's meet today's candidate.
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Thank you very much, first of all, for having me.
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I am Gevork, Gevork Tamamian.
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I'm an ordinary person from Armenia, was born in Armenia, grew up here, and now have this ambition and purpose and the goal to make the world a better place through becoming a WHODG and restoring it for an organization which fits for the 21st century.
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You have a long background in health.
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Obviously, you are a cancer specialist.
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Did you always want to go into health?
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And what drew you into oncology?
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As far as I remember myself, I always wanted to be a doctor.
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And then when I was in medical school at the end, I think of the medical school, I decided to go into the pediatric oncology following the steps of my mentor, who is the founder of uh pediatric, modern pediatric hematology oncology in Armenia, and who grew up the uh survival in a country affected by warring back in 1994 from let's say 0 or 5% up to 75 or more, and then we just built on what our mentors already created, so we are standing on the shoulders of giants, and that's how it started.
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And you're still working in oncology.
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Many people would say this is such a challenging and emotionally draining work to do.
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What what keeps you going?
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The change you are making on the people's life, because I think that's the most satisfaction a person can have from the work when you see the real change you are making in people's lives.
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Either it is through treating patience or it is through training people or through building institutions and giving chance or or a freedom to the to the people to create more.
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Or, I mean, this is I think a fantastic uh way of at least for me, of living the life.
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Well, let's move on to your ambitions then.
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You want to become director general of the World Health Organization.
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Many of the candidates are WHO insiders.
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You are not, and you're nominated not by Armenia but by Botswana.
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How has this happened and why do you want to lead the WHO?
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Let me start from the main question of why I want to lead WHO.
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Throughout my career, I had the chance to study and work in different parts of the world, and I have witnessed that kids are dying not because of there is no science, mostly, but because there is no access.
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So the kids are dying.
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And I mean, kids, I give an example of kids, but in general, people are dying not because of the lack of knowledge or science, but because of lack of equity, lack of access.
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And this is, I think, the worst thing right now, even.
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And I mean, we can give many, many examples, just like take an example in pediatric oncology, let's say London or in Vienna or in New York, the survival rate is 85%.
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The opposite in in Africa, it's around, let's say, 20, 30, in some places five, zero.
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So it's like in some places more.
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But so I mean, this inequality, inequity is horrible.
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And the most important thing I have seen, and later on through my career, I have seen how we can make change there, which we did in Armenia, which uh later on I had the chance through leading several international organizations to transfer also the capacity or the knowledge or experience to some other countries.
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And most importantly, I have seen that the way it's done, first of all, the time how we treat the time.
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We are very luxury with the time.
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How long it takes to get these meetings, how long it takes to get these recommendations, how long it takes to implement all this.
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It's years and it's horrible.
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The way I see that we can change it, that was the way I pursue.
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I said, certainly I can make this change if I become the director general of World Health Organization on a global scale.
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That again in 2032, we do not talk about that survival, let's say, again, in low-middle-income countries, or is 20%, 30%, and then plan another 10 years for the, or let's say the inequal uh inequalities in the vaccines, or I mean these kinds of things.
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Let me jump in there because I want to unpick that a bit.
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Um, you moved from your own specialization to a general point about WHO reform, which is very big on the agenda during this campaign to be the next WHO director general.
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You say that everything's too slow.
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How are you gonna get 194 member states to move more quickly?
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You see how long it's taken with the pandemic treaty.
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Okay, sure.
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I understand this uh reality.
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And I understand that WHO cannot do everything, but at least those things which depend on WHO, they can do it fast.
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They can do it fast.
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I mean, like how how it happens that for two years and I have, or like a year, like some important positions, they are staying vacant.
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How it happens?
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Why you don't have people you can hire for that important positions?
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You mean in the world there are no people to hire for that position?
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That's why those programs are later on are going down.
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Let's say a department or a division or some important positions, they don't have their owners for so long time.
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Job losses, they're making cuts at the WHO.
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That's maybe one.
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Yeah, and they are cutting the and they are cutting all the young generation.
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The member states said cut all the young and make it a retirement place.
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Of course, Geneva life is beautiful.
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Yeah, I mean it's a beautiful city, but we are world health organization.
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Come on.
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It's like we need to be, and there are, like, I don't want anyhow to undermine the world on the ground.
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Nothing like that.
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Just like I think some of the things need to be uh more need dramatic change.
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I was talking with one of the former ministers, and she told me she has a very long uh run with the WHO, and she said, you know, what we see from our end, we see like an octopus kind of structure.
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There is a big head in Geneva, and there are tails to the countries.
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No, we it should not be like that.
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The strongest foundation of WJO should be in the countries, then in the regions, we should have very strong regions, and then the headquarters.
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I think that there are some critical things which and we must have total transparency in the things what happened.
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We
are losing a lot of great talent.
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Is anyone asking why?
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Why there are no investigations on this?
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Let's look at key challenges that will face whoever becomes the new director general of the WHO.
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I'd like to hear from you which ones you are especially concerned about.
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We have climate change and its effect on health.
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We have preparing for a pandemic, the pandemic treaty, which is not going very fast.
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We have resistance to antibiotics.
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We have what looks certainly from a journalist's point of view, a growing lack of respect for health workers and hospitals in war zones.
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Which of these, when you when you look at them, do you think I have to do something about that?
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Why only those?
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I mean, those are critically important things, but why only those?
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We can talk about all of those like really for a long time, and we can dedicate as much time as needed.
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But why we are only talking about this?
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Because um, these are the things which are like uh which everyone was talking.
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You know, I was reading about the DRC problem.
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We have 4,000, more than 4,000 deaths this year, right?
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From Ebola.
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All the world is talking about this, and it's good.
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We are talking, okay, we need to take the challenge.
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And first of all, why don't we have a vaccine up to now?
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Why are we waiting until the pandemic comes to act?
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This is what.
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But the second thing, like, what is the problem?
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Is it just the Ebola problem or is it the huge inequality?
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Why these kind of things are happening in the countries which are the most vulnerable?
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Why we are in the 21st century still have having this kind of inequality?
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And I'll give you an exact example, and I'm sure everyone will agree on this.
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We are talking about 4,000 days from Ebola in DLC, but close to that, or more than that, because we don't have a registry there, that's why I'm not giving you an exact number.
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Are dying every single year kids with cancer, which majority of them could be cured.
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Every single year.
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We are not going online and saying, okay, you know, the same number we lost to Ebola this year, the same number we lost kids
with cancer who could be cured.
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Why we're not talking about this?
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And why it takes so long to build this?
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We just need to work on how to improve this.
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Every single day.
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We need don't need consultancy to come and say, okay, we need vincristen here.
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We know already the doctors know there that there is no vinegar.
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For example, I'm just giving the name of the drug as an example.
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We don't need this, and I have seen this.
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That's why we had that kind of big improvements.
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And I have seen in some countries where in the country, like the country has let's say 20% of survival, but advisors tell, okay, you need to build another building and put all your money in the stones.
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That's horrible.
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We need to expose these kind of things because we can make the real change on the ground.
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And WEO is critical here.
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Critical.
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Of course, I don't say that I mean countries don't have countries, certainly they own their health care.
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But the advice is should come from WEGO.
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And there is no single country in the world I can 100% tell you, if you go and say, okay, we are going to help you to improve this, and they say, Oh no, go away.
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You are talking that the pandemic agreement is taking so long.
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But why it's like that?
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Because there is a trust issue as well.
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There are many issues, but there is also a trust issue, right?
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I was interviewing and it's a public interview, the first lady of Sierra Leone on my podcast, and she said the vaccines arrived to us, vaccines arrived to us with three with three months expiration rate.
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In 2021, 2021, out of 8 billion vaccine doses, and I think this is WHO numbers, only 3% went to Africa.
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While the other countries already were doing a booster dose, many countries did not have vaccine to vaccinate their healthcare stuff.
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This is, I mean, this is horrible.
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And are we talking about this?
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WH has all this data.
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The they have big the this biggest uh data center on health inequalities, right?
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But why we're not stressing this?
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So talking to you, I'm beginning to understand that the absolute overriding theme of your campaign to be director general is really healthy quality.
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And that if you take your approach, many of these challenges you've referred to, whether it be Ebola, pandemic like COVID, child cancer, if you approach this, your campaign slogan is geography must not decide who lives.
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So this is going to be your key focus if you become DG.
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100%.
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100%.
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Because I have seen it and I've lived in it.
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I'm coming from a small country, low middle income country.
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And I have lived and worked and studied all over the world, really.
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And I have seen this.
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And most importantly, it's not about the problem, it's not that the inequality exists.
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It has always been there and it will be there.
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But the problem is that we can address it.
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At least in healthcare, we can address it, and we can make the change in reality and very quickly.
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That's the problem.
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I mean, I I am not naive and that think that there will be a world where there will be no rich and poor divide.
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No, it's gonna be like I wish the world would be more equal.
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But at least in the healthcare, and that is our mission, the WHO mission, and as a physician, that is our mission.
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That we make it a better way.
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What you're saying actually brings me on to my next question because everybody's talking about reform of the WHO.
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You clearly want your reform, but if you want to address health inequity, if you want to make sure that a child with cancer in a one of the least developed countries has as good a chance as a child in New York or Geneva, how are you going to do it?
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What are the key reforms that you would bring in?
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Number one, retain the top talent and to bring the top talent as well.
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And I'm going to give them freedom to create, to make a world better place, to hold them accountable.
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This is number one.
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Number two, I'm going to treat the time as precious or even more precious than the money.
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Because time is more precious than money, including the start time.
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And the third one, and I have no doubt that everyone will agree this.
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We must communicate whatever we are doing, the impact, better.
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That the world sees what we are doing.
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And I will add the fourth one.
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We are going to measure the
outcomes for the people, for the patients, for the families, not how many pages we produced, not how many meetings we held, not how many hours we took the flights.
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No.
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On the ground, I want to know we did this, this was the survival, where it is now.
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If it's not changing, then we are failed.
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Then we are like, we don't do our work.
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You have a challenge in that the WHO has lost a significant part of its funding.
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The United States, really the biggest donor for many years, has left.
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Other countries are cutting.
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How are you going to tackle that?
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Would you try to bring the United States back in?
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First of all, and I made this public by 2032, in my opinion, every candidate, in my opinion, should have like their kind of goals, what they are going to do by 2032 and hold themselves accountable for that.
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This is number one.
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And I mentioned that one of my critical goals will be to bring back US and Argentina.
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And this is not just a slogan, because I believe that one of the strongest powers in the world, out of being of WHO, it's gonna make WHO much weaker.
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And by the time it's gonna grow this weakness.
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So we must address this.
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And I started my campaign also in the US.
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I said, my goal will be to bring US and Argentina back.
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And within 100 days, I'm going to go to the US.
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Of course, before that as well, I will go.
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But this will be my critical role that we must bring WHO back.
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This is one.
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The second one, the the Cancer Center I was trained, the budget is three times more, two or three times more than WHO budget.
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So it's like it's not a money issue, it's the issue of how people perceive what we are doing.
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Do they see the impact?
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Are we able to communicate the impact?
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In five years, WHO Foundation raised$215 million.
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Five years.
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And I think it was close to 84 major donors mostly.
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Senjut only.
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Every year, ALSA collects around$2.5 billion for Senjut.
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It's not a money issue.
00:21:34.799 --> 00:21:35.839
And I've done this.
00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:42.000
I mean, when I was back to Armenia, everyone was telling, oh, you will not be able to raise the money
to no.
00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:49.680
We says established the CDF Smile Foundation, which already I think a decade, it's covering everything.
00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:55.920
Everything from diagnosis to up to the to treatment up to the age of 25, everything it's covering.
00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.759
So I mean, I have I know how to uh bring the money in.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:04.160
And how to show the impact, but most importantly, how to make the change.
00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:06.160
Because people see the impact.
00:22:06.319 --> 00:22:10.000
That's the what are you changing on the ground for the people?
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:12.000
That's the most important thing.
00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:24.079
Well, when we talk about the people, one of the things, and it's particularly since the pandemic, is you've got myths and disinformation about the World Health Organization.
00:22:24.319 --> 00:22:28.720
You've got people not trusting things the WHO does.
00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:31.680
It's particularly around vaccination.
00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:35.279
How would you how would you deal with that?
00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:40.640
Because it's it's hard to get people on board and even to get funding if they don't trust.
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:47.759
I totally agree with you that there is a trust issue, but there are two realities.
00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:49.599
There are two realities.
00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:53.279
I was on the streets of Cairo a few days ago.
00:22:53.519 --> 00:22:56.319
So I was asking the ordinary people.
00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:59.920
I was showing the WHO logo, and then what do you know?
00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:04.720
One person said, I know that there is an organization which cares for us.
00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:06.559
So this was beautiful.
00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:08.319
It was a beautiful answer.
00:23:08.480 --> 00:23:14.160
But of course, in general, when everyone is talking about the trust issue, it means there is an issue, right?
00:23:14.480 --> 00:23:18.880
And we see also with all this misinformation what's going on.
00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:27.039
And it's not that we are going to tackle it in a day, but there are some critical things what needs to be addressed and we can do it better.
00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:30.319
First of all, I think we should become better listeners.
00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:34.640
We must listen to people while this misinformation exists.
00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:41.200
And not only uh among the general public, but also among the healthcare professionals, this exists.
00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:49.200
We need to find the better ways on how we can work with people, maybe through the community leaders.
00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:50.160
Right?
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:56.480
Well, again, I'll uh bring the example of when I was doing the interview with uh first the lady of Sierra Leone.
00:23:57.119 --> 00:24:07.680
She said when they made this huge progress uh against post-child marriage, it was a huge issue, and they made it also through the UN as an international day.
00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:15.599
And she said, I started working with the community leaders, with the men, with the uh religious leaders.
00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:25.920
There are so many ways we need to, we need to work with the uh digital companies around the world, with the media, with everyone, we need to work to better communicate.
00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:31.440
And but first to listen, what people need to know, what people want to know.
00:24:31.680 --> 00:24:38.559
The second one, I think, is being honest about uh gaps in our knowledge and about failures.
00:24:38.720 --> 00:24:40.000
This is very, very important.
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:57.359
And I'm saying this as also as a pediatric oncologist who spent most of his career telling to patients both good outcomes, but also having the worst, most difficult discussions one could have with the family and telling a family that their child is going to die.
00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:00.319
So this is very, very difficult.
00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:06.480
But also being honest when you don't know or you when you are making a mistake, then people trust you.
00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:12.400
Finally, and most importantly, people need to see in their lives what's changing.
00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:20.960
If they see it, if they see that again that the uh vaccine expiration rate is three months, they will not trust anyone.
00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:30.240
If they see that the the kids are dying because just merely because they are were born in a place where there is no access, they won't trust.
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:34.079
But they if they see this, the change is happening.
00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:36.720
They would we will rebuild this trust.
00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:39.440
Okay, I have two very short questions for you.
00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:48.240
These are one I ask everyone because all of the candidates are very, very busy, very busy health professionals and now campaigning.
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:50.880
What do you do when you have a chance to relax?
00:25:51.039 --> 00:25:52.640
What do you do when you're not working?
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:57.839
My wife tells me that I never stop working, and she complains about it.
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:02.559
And even when we are with family, she says, just stop thinking.
00:26:02.799 --> 00:26:04.480
I don't know, but maybe.
00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:07.279
And this has been an issue always.
00:26:07.599 --> 00:26:10.319
But uh, I try to spend time with family.
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:14.480
And then the very last one, this is your just quick campaign slogan.
00:26:14.799 --> 00:26:18.079
Why does the world still need the World Health Organization?
00:26:18.319 --> 00:26:21.119
And why are you the best person to lead it?
00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:32.480
There are failures, of course, there are mistakes, of course, but I'm convinced that the world is much better with World Health Organization than without it.
00:26:32.720 --> 00:26:39.039
And whatever we can criticize, but certainly it does amazing work as well.
00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:42.960
But just we need to build already on what has been done.
00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:49.599
And as everywhere, we are really standing on the shoulders of giants, and we just need to amplify the work.
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:53.680
And the the things I'm telling it's not just to criticize anyone's work.
00:26:53.839 --> 00:26:55.119
I really appreciate the work.
00:26:55.279 --> 00:27:03.359
All the leaders have been doing this throughout these decades, but I'm sure we can build taking it as a foundation and build on this.
00:27:03.759 --> 00:27:24.559
Why I am the best one, you know, I'm a little bit humble person, in my opinion, and I don't like to do ask for this kind of questions, but I think I would not say the best one, but I think I I can make a real change, I can restore the trust, I can bring people together, I can bring positivity.
00:27:24.720 --> 00:27:27.759
That's what I have been doing, and that's my strengths, I think.
00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:30.400
That's what I can bring to WHO.
00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:34.559
Dr.
00:27:34.720 --> 00:27:41.599
Georg Tamamian on his candidacy to become Director General of the World Health Organization.
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:49.519
And that brings us to the end of this episode of our special series on the campaign to lead the WHO.
00:27:49.839 --> 00:27:57.119
The series is a co-production from the Global Health Centre of Geneva's Graduate Institute and SwissInfo.
00:27:57.359 --> 00:28:06.319
Tune in wherever you get your podcasts for our future episodes, where we'll be talking to more candidates to be Director General.
00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:25.599
And for more information about the WHO and its possible leaders, take a look at the Global Health Centre's dedicated platform by going to gh platform dot org forward slash WHO dash DG dash election.
00:28:25.839 --> 00:28:29.440
I'm Imogen folks, thanks for listening.