By Nsunjo Erica
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a news conference in Geneva said there is a huge gap between the funds needed to fight the coronavirus pandemic and funds committed worldwide
According to chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO is only “10 percent of the way” to funding the billions of dollars required to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tedros said that part of the billions required is for the development of the COVID-19 vaccine however, the vaccine alone costs over US$100billion.
“For the vaccines alone, over US$100 billion will be needed,” Tedros said.
“The coming three months present a crucial window of opportunity to scale out the impact of the ACT (Access To COVID-19 tools) accelerator for global impact,” Tedros told a briefing in Geneva
“However 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 number of funds that have been committed.”
More than 19.92 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally and 729,883 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.
Current News On Vaccines
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced on Tuesday 11th August 2020 that Russia has developed and registered the first Covid-19 vaccine offering sustainable immunity against the COVID-19 virus.
Russia’s health ministry has given regulatory approval for the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya institute, after less than two months of human testing.
The World Health Organization last week urged Russia to follow established guidelines and go through all stages necessary to develop a safe vaccine.