WHO short of money to fight virus
Print Edition
There is a 鈥渧ast global gap鈥 between funds needed to fight the coronavirus pandemic and funds committed, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said yesterday, and the WHO was only 鈥10 percent of the way鈥 there.
More than 19.92 million people have been reported to be infected by the virus globally and 729,883 have died, according to a Reuters tally as of yesterday.
Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first COVID-19 cases were identified.
鈥淭he coming three months present a crucial window of opportunity to scale-up the impact of the ACT Accelerator for global impact,鈥 Tedros told a briefing in Geneva, referring to the 鈥淎ccess to COVID-19 Tools鈥 initiative.
鈥淗owever to exploit this window, we have to fundamentally scale up the way we are funding the ACT Accelerator and prioritize the use of new tools. There is a vast global gap between our ambition for the ACT Accelerator, and the amount of funds that have been committed.鈥
He said the WHO was only 鈥10 percent of the way鈥 to funding the billions of dollars required.
鈥淔or the vaccines alone, over US$100 billion will be needed,鈥 Tedros said. This sounds like lot of money and it is.
鈥淏ut it鈥檚 small in comparison to the US$10 trillion that have already been invested by G20 countries in fiscal stimulus to deal with the consequences of the pandemic so far.鈥
However, he said he saw 鈥済reen shoots of hope.鈥
鈥淚t is never too late to turn the pandemic around,鈥 Tedros said. 鈥淭his week we鈥檒l reach 20 million registered cases of COVID-19 and 750,000 deaths.鈥
鈥淏ehind these statistics is a great deal of pain and suffering. Every life lost matters. I know many of you are grieving and that this is a difficult moment for the world.
鈥淏ut I want to be clear: there are green shoots of hope and ... it is never too late to turn the outbreak around.鈥
Tedros gave examples of countries that had successfully clamped down on the spread of the coronavirus, citing New Zealand and Rwanda.
He also praised Britain and France for taking swift recent measures to tackle new spikes, such as imposing lockdowns around clusters in northern England and making masks compulsory in busy outdoor spaces in Paris.
鈥淢y message is crystal clear: suppress, suppress, suppress the virus,鈥 he said.
鈥淚f we suppress the virus effectively, we can safely open up societies.鈥
Dr Mike Ryan, head of WHO鈥檚 emergencies program, said the coronavirus was simple, brutal and cruel.
鈥淚t鈥檚 brutal in its simplicity, it is brutal in its cruelty, but it doesn鈥檛 have a brain,鈥 he said.
鈥淲e have the brains ... we can outsmart something that doesn鈥檛 have a brain but we are not doing such a great job right now.鈥
Ryan said that Brazil is registering 50,000-60,000 COVID-19 cases per day.
鈥淏razil is sustaining a very high level of epidemic, the curve is somewhat flattened, but it鈥檚 not going down and the health system is under great deal of pressure.鈥
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