Euronews Speaks To The World Health Organization About Dubai’s International Humanitarian City Facilitating Over 85% Of The Global Medical Response In The Fight Against COVID-19

This week, Europe’s leading international news channel, Euronews, spoke to the World Health Organization at Dubai’s International Humanitarian City about its record figures, having distributed over one million pairs of examination gloves and surgical masks, and over 100,000 surgical gowns so far, equaling to more than 85% of the World Health Organization’s global medical commodity response to the pandemic so far.

To date, the World Health Organization has now dispatched personal protective equipment and laboratory supplies to 64 countries through 100 shipments, to all six of the World Health Organization regions from Dubai’s International Humanitarian City, one of the biggest humanitarian hubs in the world.

Euronews spoke exclusively to Robert Blanchard, World Health Organization Representative and Team Leader for Emergency Operations about the importance of the Dubai operations and the global distribution of supplies this week.

He said: “Being able to distribute these supplies globally so quickly is vital to containment efforts. Right now, due to limited space in terms of cargo freight, in terms of passenger flights, we’re finding it increasingly difficult to access flights to those hard to reach destinations. So right now, we’re working with the government of the UAE to distribute supplies to Africa, across Asia, and to the Middle East through charter flights.” (sic)

He added: “Our team here in Dubai has been working for the last 12 weeks non-stop, to make sure that the surgical supplies and the medical equipment get those who need it the most.” (sic)

As the World Health Organization and Dubai’s International Humanitarian City process its 184^th shipment this week containing 15 tons of medical supplies including PPE and laboratory materials to 31 African Nations valued at over USD 500,000, the warehouse is seen as one of the biggest in the world, putting the operations in to perspective when it comes to aiding the world’s COVID-19 fight.

Commenting on this Robert said: “It’s amongst a network of warehouses globally, it’s part of the UNHRD system, so the UN Humanitarian Response depot has a network of warehouses across the globe. This is one of the largest, and also the UNICEF operation in Copenhagen.” (sic)

He then went on to speak about the future and the partnership between Dubai’s International Humanitarian City and the World Health Organization commenting: “We’re building a medical logistics hub here in Dubai and we’ve grown four times the size that we were originally. I think in the future what we will see is that the science of supply chain management will be married with the  science of medicine to reach our goal of protecting one billion from health emergencies.” (sic)

The full interview aired live on Euronews’ Good Morning Europe show and is available to download in this link: https://we.tl/t-g17FMiPXik

Euronews is Europe’s number one international news channel, currently delivering 24/7 news to almost 400 million TV households in 160 countries. Euronews reaches 141 million people every month and is available in 12 distinct language editions and has a strong presence on digital platforms.