The World Health Organization or WHO raised its concern about a huge gap in Covid-19 funding to help end the coronavirus pandemic.
According to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, there was a “vast global gap” between the agency's ambition for a fund, known as the “Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator” (or ACT-Accelerator), and the finances already promised to respond to the health crisis.
“We have to fundamentally scale up the way we are financing the ACT-Accelerator and prioritize the use of new tools,” Tedros said at the global health body’s latest media briefing in Geneva.
“While we’re grateful for those that have made contributions, we’re only 10% of the way to funding the billions required to realize the promise of the ACT Accelerator,” he said.
The ACT Accelerator was introduced in April 2020 and aims to unite governments, health organizations, businesses, scientists, and philanthropists to accelerate an end to the coronavirus pandemic by backing the development and distribution of the diagnostics, treatments and vaccines needed.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which is monitoring the amount of funds pledged worldwide to fight the virus, including support under the ACT Accelerator initiative, says that $9.9 billion has been pledged to date.
Tedros pointed out that the Covid-19 funding needs over $100 billion alone for vaccines. This amount was “small in comparison to the 10 trillion dollars that have already been invested by G-20 countries in fiscal stimulus to deal with the consequences of the pandemic so far,” he said.
Tedros added that the total number of registered Covid-19 cases around the world hit 20 million this week. The current death toll is at 731,570, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Despite the struggles caused by the crisis, Tedros said there were “green shoots of hope,” nonetheless.
“No matter where a country, a region, a city or a town is — it’s never too late to turn the outbreak around,” Tedros said during the news briefing.
“There are two essential elements to addressing the pandemic effectively: Leaders must step up to take action and citizens need to embrace new measures,” he said, emphasizing that the best way to beat the virus was to suppress it.
“My message is crystal clear: suppress, suppress, suppress the virus.”
US membership
Tedros previously said that he hopes US will rethink its decision to leave the United Nations organization.
“The problem is not about the money. It’s not the financing that’s the issue. It’s actually the relationship with the U.S. that’s more important and its leadership abroad,” he said during an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt hosted by the Aspen Security Forum.
The Trump administration expressed its intent to withdraw from WHO by July 6, 2021. President Donald Trump stressed what he described as WHO’s misuse of funding and its affairs with China as main reasons behind his decision to leave the organization.
“If there are issues with the WHO or the U.N. system at large, you know, we’re very open for any evaluation or assessment, and the truth can be known,” Tedros said. “This can be done from inside without leaving the organization.”
However, Tedros said that US officials are still working with WHO in its response to the coronavirus pandemic and have been “participating actively.”
