WHO chief says over $30 billion needed to develop COVID-19 tests, vaccines and treatments

While addressing the ACT Accelerator launch on June 26, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that a global initiative to speed up the development and production of COVID-19 tests, vaccines and treatments will require more than $30 billion over the next year. The potentially deadly virus has been spreading rapidly across the globe and has infected over 9.5 million people. 

While researchers and scientists around the world are still trying to find a cure, Tedros called for an ‘active collaboration’ between government, industry, health organisations, civil society organisations, and communities. The WHO chief called the vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics a ‘vital tool’; however, he also added that they will truly be effective if they get administered with ‘solidarity’. 

READ: WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Expects World To Hit 10 Million COVID-19 Cases Next Week

Tedros also noted that the world needs effective vaccines in unprecedented quantities and at unprecedented speed in a bid to bring COVID-19 under control. He further said that ‘all people’ should have access to all the tools to ‘prevent, detect and treat’ the novel coronavirus.

The WHO chief also believes that the access to Tools Accelerator will end the pandemic faster by ensuring that the tools developed are allocated rationally and equitably around the world. 

Tedros said, “The principle of equitable access is a simple thing to say, but a complicated thing to implement – it requires active collaboration between governments, industry, health organisations, civil society organizations, and communities”. 

READ: WHO Warns Against 'very Significant' COVID-19 Resurgence In Europe

COVID-19 outbreak 

Meanwhile, COVID-19, which originated in China in December 2019, has now claimed over 489,000 lives worldwide as of June 26. According to the tally by Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic has now spread to 188 countries and territories and has infected more than 9.5 million people.

Out of the total infections, more than two million have recovered but the easily spread virus is continuing to disrupt many lives. Major cities have been put under lockdown in almost all countries and the global economy is struggling. 

READ: WHO Warns Of Oxygen Shortage As COVID-19 Cases Worldwide Near 10 Million Mark

READ: WHO Celebrates End To 2nd Deadliest Ebola Outbreak