President Bill Clinton to address Opening Ceremony of the 51st Union World Conference on Lung Health, Tuesday 20 October

Official Opening Press Conference to launch new global survey of potential COVID-19 vaccine acceptance demonstrating widespread regional hesitancy 

PARIS, Oct. 19, 2020  /PRNewswire/ -- President Bill Clinton  will address the Opening Ceremony of the 51st Union World Conference on Lung Health (Union World Conference) tomorrow, Tuesday 20 October (08:00 ET/14:00 CEST).

The inaugural virtual edition of the world's leading conference on lung health will focus on the links between tuberculosis (TB), lung health and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The conference is convened by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), the world's first global health NGO, which is also celebrating its 100th anniversary on 20 October. Delegates from 135 countries, including nearly 1000 TB survivors, are attending the conference, originally set to take place in Seville, Spain.

President Clinton will be joined at the Opening Ceremony by UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Shannon Hader, UK Film and TV Actress and The Union's TB Ambassador Claire Forlani, Katherine Maher, CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation and TB survivors Divya Sojan and Tamaryn Green.

At the Official Opening Press Conference (Live Broadcast, Tuesday 20 October, 07:00 ET/13:00 CEST), the first public study to specifically evaluate the global acceptability of a vaccine against COVID-19 will be launched.

Results from a survey across 19 countries of people's attitudes towards a potential COVID-19 vaccine, to be published in Nature Medicine, will be presented in the press conference by lead author Jeffrey Lazarus of ISGlobal (an institution supported by "la Caixa" Foundation), who will talk about concerns around regionally low levels of vaccine acceptance.

Attendance at the Opening Ceremony and Official Opening Press Conference (and those thereafter this coming week) is strictly limited to accredited media only.

Media registration is open and free to all accredited media representatives.

What: Opening Ceremony of the 51st Union World Conference on Lung Health

Who:

Professor Guy Marks, President, The Union
President Bill Clinton
Yvonne Chaka Chaka, singer, entrepreneur, Global Health Advocate and humanitarian
José Luis Castro, Executive Director, The Union
Divya Sojan, TB survivor and nurse
Shannon Hader, Deputy Executive Director, United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
Dr Keren Middelkoop, Chair, Coordinating Committee of Scientific Activities (CCSA)
Katherine Maher, Chief Executive of the Wikimedia Foundation
Claire Forlani, UK Film and TV Actress, and The Union's TB Ambassador
Dr Tamaryn Green, TB Survivor, Medical Doctor, Miss South Africa 2018

When: Tuesday 20 October (08:00 ET/14:00 CEST).

What: Official Opening Press Conference

Who:

Grania Brigden, Director, TB Department, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), Switzerland
Ren Minghui, WHO Assistant Director-General for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Neglected Tropical, Diseases, Switzerland
Shannon Hader, Deputy Executive, UNAIDS, Switzerland
Divya Sojan, TB Survivor and Nurse, New Delhi, India
Claire Forlani, Film and TV actress, TB Ambassador, The Union, UK
Enock Kizito, MDR-TB Advisor, USAID Defeat TB Project, Uganda
Jeff Lazarus, Head of the Health Systems Research Group, Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Spain

When: Live Broadcast, Tuesday 20 October (07:00 ET/13:00 CEST)

Media registration is open and free to all accredited media representatives.

Full Union Conference Programme available here.

See how The Union is supporting the COVID-19 response.

About the 51st Union World Conference on Lung Health

The Union World Conference on Lung Health, convened by The Union, is the world's largest gathering of clinicians and public health workers, health programme managers, policymakers, researchers and advocates working to end the suffering caused by lung disease, with a focus specifically on the challenges faced by low-and lower-middle income populations. Of the 10 million people who die each year from lung diseases, some 80 percent live in these resource-limited settings.

Organising international conferences on TB and related subjects has been a core activity of The Union since its founding in 1920.

Twitter: @UnionConference

About The Union

The Union was founded in 1920 and is the world's first global health organisation. We are a global leader in ending TB, we fight the tobacco industry, and we solve key problems in treating major diseases. We use science to design the best treatments and policies for the most pressing public health challenges affecting people living in poverty around the world. The Union's members, staff and consultants operate in more than 140 countries and embody our core values of accountability, independence, quality and solidarity.

Twitter: @TheUnion_TBLH